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Old 11-26-2007, 05:14 PM   #1
ctroyer
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CAD 3d modelling - not art/animation


I am curious about what the community thinks about the current state of the art in opensource CAD software. At work, I have used SolidWorks, ProE and Alibre. I also use Alibre Design Express at home(Windoze), but like most, I would like to finally sever this last remaining tie to the dark side. I have no complaints about the capabilities or quality of any of the preceding software products, but can't stomach continuing to pay taxes to Microsoft. I use BRL-CAD, I installed it on my Slackware12 boxes, and am clawing my way up the learning curve, but really don't need to do any lethality analysis, so it's a bit much. What I am dreaming of is a parameter based sketcher, similar to the SolidWorks/ProE/Alibre interface, that can then extrude the sketch (parametrically) to build up solids. There are two divergent paths at this point for real world engineering work. One is to generate 2D prints from the 3d model, and the other is to provide for constraint based assembly of the modelled solids. The icing on the cake would be to use kinematics to model physical interactions of the modelled solids - (really dreaming now) for both rigid and deformable bodies. To be commercially viable, a CAD/CAM package also ought to include a configurable CNC code posting feature.
It seems to me that all the pieces of the puzzle are available out there in the opensource world. The rigorous solid modelling capabilities of BRL-CAD, the rendering and meshing utilities in OpenCascade, various opensource FEA libraries....
Seems to me that what remains is for some enterprising (or masochistic) individuals to start putting all the pieces together in a GIMP style effort to provide the 'killer app' for the Linux - opensource world.
 
Old 11-26-2007, 06:58 PM   #2
pljvaldez
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I have the same problem, though since work provides the tax to Microsoft I'm not too hung up on it. But it would be nice to use linux all the time instead of using XP for Solidworks.

So far, my opinion is that open source 3-D CAD isn't quite there. If the company would shell out the $$$, I'd probably use Pro/E. I've heard good things about VariCAD, but never used it. Never tried gCAD3D either...
 
Old 07-13-2008, 03:47 PM   #3
brlcad
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ctroyer View Post
I am curious about what the community thinks about the current state of the art in opensource CAD software.
...snip...
It seems to me that all the pieces of the puzzle are available out there in the opensource world. The rigorous solid modeling capabilities of BRL-CAD, the rendering and meshing utilities in OpenCascade, various opensource FEA libraries....
Seems to me that what remains is for some enterprising (or masochistic) individuals to start putting all the pieces together in a GIMP style effort to provide the 'killer app' for the Linux - opensource world.
That is exactly what is going on at the BRL-CAD project.

Unfortunately all of the pieces are not really available on the open source side. There is an astounding amount of effort (and background knowledge) that has to go into making an open source CAD system. That has been part of what has kept open source pretty much out of the picture as being a viable alternative to some of the big names in commercial CAD.

Even without getting into the assumptions that are made when someone says "CAD" (as that alone varies *heavily* from person to person, see http://brlcad.org/Industry_Diagram.png for example), there is a lot of manpower required. BRL-CAD has nearly 500 person-years of effort invested in it yet it's still missing a lot of features required to encompass even a fraction of the overall CAD industry. That amount of effort is more than the Blender modeler (which has exceptional visibility/activity) and more than any other open source CAD project, but then BRL-CAD's usability and sheer size is a tough hurdle for new developers.

Improving usability is BRL-CAD's current #1 project priority with development efforts progressing on a new GUI prototypes and more comprehensive/robust support for BREP geometry. Participating in the Google Summer of Code has done wonders for increasing development efforts but more is always better.

If folks want to help make things better, the best suggestion would be to simply get involved. Make patches, write documentation, help make things better. ;-)

Cheers!
Sean
 
  


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