Kyle,
Hi and thanks for the message! That sounds like a fantastic idea you
have there. It's actually been on our to-do list to have a succinct
"introduction to BRL-CAD" that covers installation and basic use.
For coaching you, I'd be happy to help you one-on-one via e-mail. I
would suggest, though, that we talk on the brlcad-users mailing list
(cc'd) since that will afford others the opportunity to help you
too. That can be particularly useful for those times when I'm
overloaded and may possibly give you (and others) more breadth of an
answer to questions as they come up. The brlcad-users mailing list
can be joined [1] here:
[1] https://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/brlcad-users
As for installation, the steps are usually very specific to the
platform you're installing on except for installing from a source
code release (where it's the same for most platforms). If you're on
Linux, that's what I would say you should start with just to make the
steps the easiest to make generic (at least in terms of contributing
a tutorial). So the first step would be to go to http://brlcad.org
and selecting "Download" off the menu, then selecting the Source
link. That will take you to [2] a page on Sourceforge that has all
source downloads listed. Download one of them and unpack the tarball.
[2] https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?
group_id=105292&package_id=113368
Once you unpack the sources, like most open source packages, there
are a couple "standard" files that you should read. That would be
the [3] README and [4] INSTALL files.
[3] http://brlcad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/brlcad/brlcad/trunk/
README
[4] http://brlcad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/brlcad/brlcad/trunk/
INSTALL
While the exact instructions and options will vary slightly from
release to release and will depend on your platform, the basic
compile-and-install steps are pretty much the same. You prepare the
build system "autogen.sh", you specify compilation options with
"configure", you run "make" to build everything, and then "make
install" to install everything. For purposes of a tutorial, the
steps that will generally work best for most are:
sh autogen.sh
./configure --enable-all --without-ogl --enable-optimized
make
sudo make install
To understand everything that is spelled out there requires reading
through most of [3] README and [4] INSTALL but is pretty common for
most Linux source installations. That should get you started.
Assuming everything compiles and installs cleanly, the [4] INSTALL
file covers how to test the installation to make sure everything is
okay. Once that is done, our existing [5] Documentation then becomes
invaluable. I'd suggest going through the list one at a time in
order going down the list.
[5] http://brlcad.org/wiki/Documentation
The second document, "Introduction to MGED" is a very detailed series
of tutorials that aim to get someone familiar with the basics of
modeling using BRL-CAD. Please don't hesitate to write back with any
questions or clarifications.
Cheers!
Sean
On Feb 21, 2009, at 5:00 AM, Kyle Pearson wrote:
I'm a teacher, and have done a bit of technical writing, and i'm
also interested in learning brl-cad -- but i've never used CAD
software and have no idea where to begin sifting the mountain of
your documentation to get to design even a simple object (right
now, the project is a fine-wood bread-maker's cabinet).
So i've been around Linux for a few years, and have always been
interested in contributing something, but never really saw an
opportunity like this one. I'd love to help y'all write up some
basic introductions to brl-cad; i could learn a lot, get some
free coaching on its installation, usage, and whatnot, and then
write up what i learn as tutorials.
We could start with "installation", and go from there. :-)
I'm familiar enough with Linux systems that, in a small-business
situation, i could probably pass as an adequate sysadmin. I live
in Taiwan, though, and those guys are a dime-a-dozen. I have
virtually no familiarity with coding applications, nor with full-
featured programming languages -- just enough to get by, and no more.
I think my abilities are well matched to this task, and would be
happy to lend a hand -- at least for a few months.
So if y'all would like to set me up with a contact who'd be willing
to patiently coach me through the fundmentals, then i'd be more
than happy to write up the lessons i receive as tutorials, hyper-
link them, and construct a basic set of introductory materials that
people can use to get started.
K. Pearson
--
Pray for Gaza, and the brave, beleaguered Palestinians.
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
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