Hi João, Good to see some interest in improving Blender's CAD capabilities :) I think it would be a good idea to speak about it on Blenderartists, giving some focus to avoid the Christmas list effect. From experience and what I read on the forums though, improving the snapping system would be very welcome.
For dimensioning, there are already many addons, 2 of them are really good: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Curve/Dimension and https://www.blender3darchitect.com/2012/10/dimension-lines-for-blender-with-the-caliper-add-on/ and https://github.com/Antonioya/blender/tree/master/measureit. I find it interesting to have some work done in Python in this GSoC as it will ensure users are able to use it in the end :) Regards On 02/03/2016 13:17, João Araújo wrote: > Good afternoon, > > I am a college student who has known Blender for a few years now, and would > like to contribute in GSoC 2016 by adding CAD functionality. I would like > to ear your thoughts on my project idea. > > I have been checking on what has been done to implement CAD in Blender. I > didn't find almost any software. Mostly there were forum discussions about > how great it would be if Blender could have CAD features, while others > stated that it would be impractical. > > The only actual add-on I found was this one > > http://www.cad4arch.com/cadtools/index.htm > > but although it is still being developed, it is paid and only works with > Blender 2.49b. The author states an intention of embedding it into Blender, > though. > > >From what I read, and based on my experience working with CAD packages, I > compiled a list of targets for what I would propose myself to achieve > during GSoC: > > ordered from most important to less important > > - Add a new editor that would allow the user to make ISO-compliant > drawings of individual parts. > - This requires, from the top of my head, the ability of drawing the > 6 isometric views, at a standard scale, on standard sized paper (A4, A3, > etc.), adding dimensions (lengths and angles), centerlines, axes, being > able to do section views (with crosshatch drawing) and detail views. > - Add sketch tools (the ability to draw lines, circles, rectangles, etc. > ; this serves the purpose of increasing the precision of drawing with > Blender) > - Add reference geometry (reference planes and axes) > - Add a dimensioning tool (something that allows the user to edit the > dimensions a posteriori the sketch being created) > - Modify the array modifier in order to allow explicit circular arrays > - This can already be achieved using a trick with empties, but I > would like to clarify this workflow and simplify it (for example, instead > of the user rotating the empty by 360/n degrees, where n is the number of > objects, he would simply select n and the modifier would take care of the > rest) > - Add a fillet tool (a very simple addition; can be done with vertex > groups and the bevel modifier currently; once again I simply want to > simplify it) > - Add a precise offset tool (currently, I can simply extrude and scale ; > I want to make this work with the dimensioning tool mentioned above) > > > I believe these are all feasible by me, with the first one being the most > complex and one of the few requiring C programming. The others could be > implemented as a Python Add-On. > > Best regards, > Joao > _______________________________________________ > Bf-committers mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers _______________________________________________ Bf-committers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
