How to Create an Architectural BOM in FreeCAD

Generating a Bill of Materials (BOM) for architectural elements in FreeCAD allows you to track project components, estimate costs, and manage material quantities efficiently. By utilizing the BIM and Spreadsheet workbenches, FreeCAD can automatically extract geometric and metadata properties—such as length, volume, object type, and assigned materials—directly from your 3D model into an organized table. This guide walks you through preparing your architectural elements, generating a schedule, and exporting the final material list.

1. Prepare Your Architectural Elements

Before creating a BOM, ensure your model is properly structured:

  • Model your components using dedicated architectural tools (Walls, Structures, Windows, Doors, or Roofs) in the BIM Workbench (or Arch Workbench in older FreeCAD versions).
  • Assign explicit names or labels to your objects in the Tree View to make identification straightforward.
  • Attach specific materials to each element using the Material tool so the BOM can aggregate quantities by material type.
  • Verify that objects have standard IFC roles or properties assigned (such as IfcWall or IfcWindow), which helps with filtering.

2. Create a Schedule Using the BIM Schedule Tool

FreeCAD features a dedicated schedule tool to extract architectural data automatically:

  1. Switch to the BIM Workbench.
  2. Click the BIM Schedule button (or navigate to BIM > Reporting > Schedule).
  3. In the dialog that appears, click Add to specify the types of objects you want to query (for example, filtering by Type == "Wall" or collecting all objects with an active material).
  4. Define the properties to extract. Common columns include:
    • Label: The object’s name.
    • Material: The assigned material.
    • Volume or Length: The calculated geometric measurement.
    • Count: The total number of identical elements.

3. Generate the Spreadsheet

Once your schedule parameters are defined, FreeCAD links the extracted data to a native spreadsheet:

  1. Click OK in the Schedule dialog. FreeCAD will create a new Spreadsheet object in your Tree View.
  2. Double-click the generated spreadsheet to open it in the main view.
  3. Review the populated cells. The data remains dynamically linked to the model; if you alter the geometry of a wall or add new components, the values can be updated by recomputing the document (Ctrl + R).

4. Group and Calculate Quantities

To compute totals directly inside FreeCAD:

  1. Use standard spreadsheet formulas within empty cells (such as =SUM(C2:C15) to calculate total concrete volume).
  2. Format column headers and cell alignments to prepare the document for presentation.

5. Export the Bill of Materials

To use the schedule in external estimating or spreadsheet software:

  1. Open the spreadsheet tab.
  2. Go to File > Export.
  3. Select CSV (.csv) from the file format dropdown.
  4. Save the file. You can now import this data into applications like Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, or specialized estimation tools.