Visibility, Selection, and Export (How They Work Together)¶

This page explains a common source of confusion in FreeCAD: visibility, selection, and export are related, but they are not the same thing.

Understanding how they interact prevents accidental exports and missing geometry.

The three concepts (short version)¶

Visibility controls what you can see
Selection controls what you are acting on
Export uses both visibility and selection rules

Keeping these separate in your head makes FreeCAD much easier to predict.

Visibility¶

Visibility answers one question:

Is this object currently shown?

Visible objects appear in the 3D view
Hidden objects do not appear
Visibility is toggled with the Spacebar

Important: - Hidden objects are ignored during export - Visibility does not mean the object is selected

Selection¶

Selection answers a different question:

Which object am I working on right now?

Clicking an object selects it
Selected objects highlight in the tree and 3D view
You can select objects that are visible or hidden (via the tree)

Selection alone does not guarantee export.

Export (what FreeCAD actually does)¶

When exporting, FreeCAD follows these rules:

Only visible objects are considered
If something is selected, only the selected visible objects export
If nothing is selected, all visible objects export

This is why accidental multi-body exports happen.

Safe export workflow (recommended)¶

To export a single Body safely:

Hide all other Bodies (Spacebar)
Confirm only one Body is visible
Select that Body
File → Export → STL / 3MF

This removes ambiguity and prevents mixed exports.

Common mistakes (and why they happen)¶

“Why did my export include multiple parts?”¶

More than one Body was visible

“Why did nothing export?”¶

The Body was hidden

“Why did the wrong thing export?”¶

Selection did not match visibility

These are visibility issues, not file format problems.

How this relates to duplication and dependencies¶

Duplication uses selection
Export uses visibility + selection
Dependencies determine what must exist, not what exports

Each system has a different purpose.

One-sentence takeaway¶

If you can’t see it, it won’t export. If you don’t select it, FreeCAD may export more than you expect.