A case study of real-time collaborative design in FreeCAD and NVIDIA Omniverse

FreeCAD, a robust open-source CAD tool, is popular among small organisations and users seeking an efficient, bloat-free design platform, with many applications integrating it as a CAD backend. However, it lacks collaborative design features essential in modern engineering. This work introduces a FreeCAD connector for NVIDIA Omniverse, enabling real-time collaboration, version control, and photo-realistic rendering. Demonstrated through a case study of engineers designing a sensor for a stellarator fusion plant, the connector enhances FreeCAD workflows by connecting to Omniverse’s Nucleus—a secure, central storage platform compatible with third-party tools. This integration offers FreeCAD users a collaborative, non-proprietary CAD solution, expanding design capabilities for engineers and creators within Omniverse.