# Hallo from Zürich to zürich **URL:** \ **Category:** compas\_fea\ **Created:** [March 18, 2020, 10:27pm UTC](https://forum.compas-framework.org/t/hallo-from-zurich-to-zurich/310 "2020-03-18T22:27:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bernd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bernd](https://forum.compas-framework.org/u/bernd)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 10:27pm UTC](https://forum.compas-framework.org/t/hallo-from-zurich-to-zurich/310/1 "2020-03-18T22:27:44Z")
Just stumbled on compas and found it is developed on ETH. Spend some time reading documentation. Hopefully I will find a minute to give it a try. I have been doing similar development with FreeCAD for the last years. The FEM module is able to use multiple solver and is fully sciptable by Python thus there are a lot similarities to compas. Thus I just wanted to say Grüezi. cheers bernd ---
**Author:** ![tomvanmele](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.compas-framework.org/tomvanmele/32/13_2.png) [@tomvanmele](https://forum.compas-framework.org/u/tomvanmele)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2020, 6:43am UTC](https://forum.compas-framework.org/t/hallo-from-zurich-to-zurich/310/2 "2020-03-20T06:43:41Z")
hi bernd, grüezi to you to 🙂 didn’t know this about FreeCAD, will have a look! let’s keep in touch… best, tom ---
**Author:** ![bernd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bernd](https://forum.compas-framework.org/u/bernd)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2020, 11:51am UTC](https://forum.compas-framework.org/t/hallo-from-zurich-to-zurich/310/3 "2020-03-20T11:51:34Z")
Yes very good idea … If you would like to give it a try, use 0.19 dev versions, FreeCAD FEM is improving fast … Documentation for FEM is not as good as compas. But the community is great. If you have any questions forum.freecadweb dot org (only two links allowed for me ATM) is best to ask for. There is a special part for FEM related topics. Python examples … [https://wiki.freecadweb.org/FEM\_Tutorial\_Python](https://wiki.freecadweb.org/FEM_Tutorial_Python) and [https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/tree/080c658ab/src/Mod/Fem/femexamples](https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/tree/080c658ab/src/Mod/Fem/femexamples) cheers bernd ---
**Author:** ![jelle](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.compas-framework.org/jelle/32/423_2.png) [@jelle](https://forum.compas-framework.org/u/jelle)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2020, 1:43pm UTC](https://forum.compas-framework.org/t/hallo-from-zurich-to-zurich/310/4 "2020-03-31T13:43:40Z")
FreeCAD is rather cool and indeed moving fwd swiftly… One of the aspects I appreciated is being able to [install FreeCAD via `conda`](https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD_Conda) ---
**Author:** ![bernd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bernd](https://forum.compas-framework.org/u/bernd)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 7:08am UTC](https://forum.compas-framework.org/t/hallo-from-zurich-to-zurich/310/5 "2020-04-16T07:08:57Z")
yes and including all the dependencies, which are really a lot due to FreeCAD bring together many many opensource libraries and tools around CAE, CAD systems. BTW: there are even portable versions available too. [https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases](https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases) ---
**Author:** ![tomvanmele](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.compas-framework.org/tomvanmele/32/13_2.png) [@tomvanmele](https://forum.compas-framework.org/u/tomvanmele)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2020, 9:18am UTC](https://forum.compas-framework.org/t/hallo-from-zurich-to-zurich/310/6 "2020-09-12T09:18:27Z")
hi bernd, just wanted to let you know that i tried running COMPAS in FreeCAD and found it to be really easy with the `conda` based install. ![Screenshot 2020-09-12 at 08.54.49](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/uploads/compas_framework1/original/1X/0b4ec07eb15459d776e008e7fec095849ee69ad6.png) will be exploring this a bit more in the next few weeks… kudos on a well-designed system! best, tom ---
**Author:** ![bernd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bernd](https://forum.compas-framework.org/u/bernd)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2020, 10:06pm UTC](https://forum.compas-framework.org/t/hallo-from-zurich-to-zurich/310/7 "2020-09-13T22:06:07Z")
Great! Keep in mind in FreeCAD exists two data structures for meshes. Mesh and Meshworkbench for surface meshes only ([https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Mesh\_Workbench](https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Mesh_Workbench)) and FemMesh in FEMworkbench for FEM meshes ([https://wiki.freecadweb.org/FEM\_Mesh](https://wiki.freecadweb.org/FEM_Mesh)) can handle various meshes. The latter is based on smesh. bernd