Using Pandas with FreeCAD

Question

I am brand new to FreeCAD and fairly new to python in general.

I have a project going on in which I have a list of several hundred (x,y) coordinates stored in two columns in an Excel doc. These points define a slice of an elevation profile. What I'm needing to do is draw a line/shape in FreeCAD using these points that can then be extruded into an extended version of this shape. Since the data is currently in excel, I'm leaning towards using pandas to access it, but I'm open to other ideas.

The problem I'm having with this line of thinking so far is that I can't figure out a way to access pandas from inside FreeCAD, so I've been attempting to use Winpython(2.7.10) through the Spyder ide to import FreeCAD(0.16) and pandas into the same script. I've tried adding both the Freecad/bin and Freecad/lib folders to my path (using this recommended method https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Embedding_FreeCAD/en), but have yet to have any success importing.

The error is: "DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found." .... Searching around, I can't seem to find FreeCad.dll or FreeCAD.so anywhere in my install, yet FreeCAD runs normally when used independently.

To summarize: Wanting to run FreeCAD through an external python console in order to access excel data through pandas (which doesn't seem to be available within FreeCAD itself). In doing so, I get an error and FreeCAD isn't accessible. It might be a version compatibility issue, or something more complex.

If you made it here, thank you for taking the time to read through my fairly complex/niche problem. Please feel free to suggest any more elegant alternatives, as I said, I'm new to this and likely haven't come across all possible solutions.

Thank you

Answer 1

I'm not exactly certain what "pandas" is - a quick search didn't reveal anything except the game engine Panda3D and the animal itself...

As for accessing data external to FreeCAD, this is something I've been exploring myself lately. At the moment, some success has been achieved by starting FreeCAD in server mode and having it watch an excel file, then running python script when it changes.

This approach would allow you to parse an Excel file using commonly available python libraries for that purpose.

EDIT:

Having been informed on just what pandas is, it seems odd you can't make it work with FreeCAD. However, there could be a number of causes:

1. Old version. FreeCAD is undergoing really significant change right now. Ensure you're using the latest stable release (0.17 - Roland), but I'd recommend getting your hands on the latest 0.18-dev release

2. Incorrect python version - FreeCAD currently is built on Py2, though Py3 builds are possible (I run FreeCAD / Py3 on my linux machine). Ensure you've installed pandas appropriately to match the python version FreeCAD depends upon (Py2, most likely).

3. Invalid install - If you know pandas imports and works in the python interpreter itself, try importing and running pandas code from the FreeCAD python console.