Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
Hi, maybe somehow late but please give openscad [1] a trial. 1. It converts dxf-drawings in 3D Models 2. It uses a language (C style) instead of a GUI to describe 3D models Thus, it might be much closer to the way of gEDA. I'm just on the way to try out how good this works out for 3D printers. Furthermore there is the Mini-T project from Makerbeam [2]. An aluminium profile construction kit. Similar to item or isel but much smaller. It will be somehow the a mixture between fisher-technic toy and T-profiles. Hope this is useful Bye Torsten [1] http://openscad.org/ [2] http://www.makerbeam.com/ 2010/2/25 Kai-Martin Knaak k...@familieknaak.de: I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) ---(kaimartin) -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de GPG key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmkop=get ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Tue, 2010-03-09 at 16:54 -0800, Dave N6NZ wrote: On Mar 9, 2010, at 4:01 PM, DJ Delorie wrote: is that true? Is it simply generated on the fly off the pad information during gerber export? That's true. Just in case anyone is confused by the tight snippage: It is true that there is no real paste layer, it is generated on the fly off the pad information. OK, so... for a long time, I've been thinking about how to add refined paste information. My approach would be: 0. Extend the lexer and parser to warn and ignore on unrecognized keywords in footprints. This allows some backwards compatibility of pcb with new footprint keywords, although at the expense of error checking. Maybe should have a 'strict' option to cause an error. 1. Extend footprints to include a paste (...) keyword that looks pretty much like the 'pad() keyword. 2. If paste() doesn't exist for a footprint, synthesize one from the pad() information. That way, old footprints work just as they do now. 3. Add a paste layer to carry around the paste() information through all the translation/rotation of the symbol. 0, 1, and 2 I think I can sort out relatively easily. I have no idea how to add a layer and do all the necessary updates for footprint relocation. -dave I can imagine two options for file-Save time: 1. Adding an internal flag to state whether the paste information has been derived from the pad, or loaded from the file. In the derived case, we could skip re-saving the paste layer. (This works nicely if we decided to have some setting to specify a shrink between pad and paste.. it would allow the shrink setting to stay editable (and update the board) for non-manually modified pads. 2. Just save paste() layer information each time. This does, however mean that the paste is stuck in stone with the rest of the footprint when it is placed. Perhaps not such a bad thing. Questions though.. What to do with a manually defined paste layer if the user fiddles with the size of the copper pad / solder mask? (Assuming that eventually becomes more flexible to edit). Solder mask aperture is important as well as pad size, since the stencil opening probably ought never include areas which are solder-masked. It is possible (although I'm not sure how useful) to set a partially masked pad - perhaps as some kind of heat-sink for a transistor, with a defined mask opening. Regards, -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) Tel: +44 (0)1223 748328 - (Shared lab phone, ask for me) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 11:33:11PM +, Peter Clifton wrote: On Tue, 2010-03-09 at 18:27 -0500, Dan McMahill wrote: pstoedit converts postscript to various formats. So I suppose you could try pcb export to postscript and then pstoedit to produce dxf. That said, there are always issues with file conversions and I suspect you're much better off letting pcb directly produce dxf. But it may just work. NB: The code being talked about is DXF - PCB outline... not PCB-DXF. It seems that we now have _three_ people who have independently written such a tool. I guess this suggests people are wishing to design boards which fit in a given mechanical envelope, as exported from a mech.-cad package. In my case, it is just the opposite, I build the enclosure around the constraints of the circuit (high frequency). I wanted to attach a photo, but it's 1.7MB, which is a bit heavy for the mailing list, I believe. Gabriel ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 07:56:42PM -0500, DJ Delorie wrote: One of my long-term projects is to add layer types to layers, and allow for sub-circuits (i.e. elements). Then we'd have a true paste layer, and you could define elements as complexly as you need. But it's been on the list for a long time, and hasn't happened yet :-( Indeed, however how hard would it be to add a nopaste flag to a pad to indicate that you don't want paste for this specific pad? An example would be for very large pads, where you would want to define a partially filled pad (a grid) later on the paste layer. And while we are at it adding a paste shrink parameter for middle sized pads, where you typically want a paste area somewhat smaller than the pad itself. Gabriel ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
Indeed, however how hard would it be to add a nopaste flag to a pad to indicate that you don't want paste for this specific pad? Only as hard as running the ChangePaste() action. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
Indeed, however how hard would it be to add a nopaste flag to a pad to indicate that you don't want paste for this specific pad? Only as hard as running the ChangePaste() action. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 10:13:16AM -0500, DJ Delorie wrote: Indeed, however how hard would it be to add a nopaste flag to a pad to indicate that you don't want paste for this specific pad? Only as hard as running the ChangePaste() action. I wasn't aware of its existence. Gabriel ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Mar 10, 2010, at 4:24 AM, Peter Clifton wrote: Questions though.. What to do with a manually defined paste layer if the user fiddles with the size of the copper pad / solder mask? (Assuming that eventually becomes more flexible to edit). ? I don't think I understand the question. Are you asking what to do if the user is editing pads and masks inside of a placed footprint inside PCB? I think the answer is, if the user wants to change the solder mask, he fiddles that, too. Solder mask aperture is important as well as pad size, since the stencil opening probably ought never include areas which are solder-masked. It is possible (although I'm not sure how useful) to set a partially masked pad - perhaps as some kind of heat-sink for a transistor, with a defined mask opening. There is such a thing as a mask defined pad where the copper is larger than the mask aperture, and the mask aperture is what defines the effective size of the pad. In that case, the stencil should be the smaller of pad or mask aperture. I've never built a board that way, FWIW. Heat sinks are an interesting case. First off, the pad might be much larger than the device tab. The whole thing will be unmasked. But it probably wants a pattern of a few dots of solder on it, not a giant puddle. The problems I am trying to solve in my particular case are: 1. In some cases, heuristics have no chance what so ever of deriving the mask that I want from the pad layer. So I want to specify it precisely in a footprint file and not have any tool do any underhanded automatic tweaks to it, ever. 2. My personal technology for homebrew stencils has limitations that require modifications to the current paste layer that are not easily programmed into an automated tool. Again, I just want to say it once in a footprint file, and no tool should ever try to out guess that. -dave ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Mar 10, 2010, at 4:24 AM, Peter Clifton wrote: Solder mask aperture is important as well as pad size, since the stencil opening probably ought never include areas which are solder-masked. It is possible (although I'm not sure how useful) to set a partially masked pad - perhaps as some kind of heat-sink for a transistor, with a defined mask opening. The unixy side is coming out in me. It sounds like we want arbitrary mask layers in the footprint. solder paste mask solder mask mask Where solder mask is a negative mask and solder paste is a positive mask Solder paste is a volumetric decision, where solder mask is area. I propose that the footprint gets a general mask statement. Mask[ type, polarity, linked name, shape, scale, shape coords... ] type - specifies what type of mask it is polarity - specifies positive or negative linked name - associates the mask to a pin or pad, used for scaling bounds. example you wouldn't scale a solder paste mask larger than a pad it was associated with. shape - specifies circular, rectangular, or polygon. scale - specifies how the mask can/should be scaled. Thoughts on scaling. volume:200pl, uses a stencil thickness specified as preference. stencil gerber gets the thickness information added. shape coordinates - depends on shape in line. circle - center and radius rectangle - opposing corners poly - list of three or more points grid - center of grid, number of columns (number across x), number of rows(number across y), grids rectangle pair others? line - endpoints and thickness Thoughts? Steve ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:58:18 + Peter Clifton pc...@cam.ac.uk wrote: I met with the LiquidPCB developer today, and he's been working on a STEP importer.. so there might be some possible overlap there. He also mentioned that he has a DXF outline - (geda-)PCB converter, which he would make available if anyone wanted it. I've wrote some C++ code to convert a DXF to PCB. It is in works for me state. Levente -- Levente Kovacs http://logonex.eu ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:26 PM, Levente Kovacs leventel...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:58:18 + Peter Clifton pc...@cam.ac.uk wrote: I met with the LiquidPCB developer today, and he's been working on a STEP importer.. so there might be some possible overlap there. He also mentioned that he has a DXF outline - (geda-)PCB converter, which he would make available if anyone wanted it. I've wrote some C++ code to convert a DXF to PCB. It is in works for me state. Levente I've written one as well, in the same state. http://vivara.net/software/dxftopcb/ I'd like to see pcb link to dxflib for import and export. Regards, Mark markra...@gmail -- Mark Rages, Engineer Midwest Telecine LLC markra...@midwesttelecine.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
Doesn't pstoedit already do this, too? http://www.pstoedit.net/ Are there advantages to these custom versions? I've wrote some C++ code to convert a DXF to PCB. It is in works for me state. Levente I've written one as well, in the same state. http://vivara.net/software/dxftopcb/ I'd like to see pcb link to dxflib for import and export. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
pstoedit converts postscript to various formats. So I suppose you could try pcb export to postscript and then pstoedit to produce dxf. That said, there are always issues with file conversions and I suspect you're much better off letting pcb directly produce dxf. But it may just work. Windell H. Oskay wrote: Doesn't pstoedit already do this, too? http://www.pstoedit.net/ Are there advantages to these custom versions? I've wrote some C++ code to convert a DXF to PCB. It is in works for me state. Levente I've written one as well, in the same state. http://vivara.net/software/dxftopcb/ I'd like to see pcb link to dxflib for import and export. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Tue, 2010-03-09 at 18:27 -0500, Dan McMahill wrote: pstoedit converts postscript to various formats. So I suppose you could try pcb export to postscript and then pstoedit to produce dxf. That said, there are always issues with file conversions and I suspect you're much better off letting pcb directly produce dxf. But it may just work. NB: The code being talked about is DXF - PCB outline... not PCB-DXF. It seems that we now have _three_ people who have independently written such a tool. I guess this suggests people are wishing to design boards which fit in a given mechanical envelope, as exported from a mech.-cad package. Windell H. Oskay wrote: Doesn't pstoedit already do this, too? http://www.pstoedit.net/ Are there advantages to these custom versions? I've wrote some C++ code to convert a DXF to PCB. It is in works for me state. Levente I've written one as well, in the same state. http://vivara.net/software/dxftopcb/ I'd like to see pcb link to dxflib for import and export. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) Tel: +44 (0)1223 748328 - (Shared lab phone, ask for me) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
Well, for one thing, dxflib is rock solid, and pstoedit was broken in many ways the last time I tried to use it. -dave On Mar 9, 2010, at 2:48 PM, Windell H. Oskay wrote: Doesn't pstoedit already do this, too? http://www.pstoedit.net/ Are there advantages to these custom versions? I've wrote some C++ code to convert a DXF to PCB. It is in works for me state. Levente I've written one as well, in the same state. http://vivara.net/software/dxftopcb/ I'd like to see pcb link to dxflib for import and export. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Mar 9, 2010, at 3:33 PM, Peter Clifton wrote: On Tue, 2010-03-09 at 18:27 -0500, Dan McMahill wrote: pstoedit converts postscript to various formats. So I suppose you could try pcb export to postscript and then pstoedit to produce dxf. That said, there are always issues with file conversions and I suspect you're much better off letting pcb directly produce dxf. But it may just work. NB: The code being talked about is DXF - PCB outline... not PCB-DXF. It seems that we now have _three_ people who have independently written such a tool. I guess this suggests people are wishing to design boards which fit in a given mechanical envelope, as exported from a mech.-cad package. Which is an interesting thought. For my part, if I could get the board outline and the location of mounting holes to/from a .dxf file, it would cover everything that I need for chassis fit. My designs are so small that doing it manually isn't a hassle for me, but of course that doesn't scale in the real world. What I really want, though, is a way to get the stencil layer pad outlines as .dxf entities. I took a look at the code, and it appears that the stencil layer isn't a real layer -- is that true? Is it simply generated on the fly off the pad information during gerber export? -dave ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
is that true? Is it simply generated on the fly off the pad information during gerber export? That's true. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Mar 9, 2010, at 4:01 PM, DJ Delorie wrote: is that true? Is it simply generated on the fly off the pad information during gerber export? That's true. Just in case anyone is confused by the tight snippage: It is true that there is no real paste layer, it is generated on the fly off the pad information. OK, so... for a long time, I've been thinking about how to add refined paste information. My approach would be: 0. Extend the lexer and parser to warn and ignore on unrecognized keywords in footprints. This allows some backwards compatibility of pcb with new footprint keywords, although at the expense of error checking. Maybe should have a 'strict' option to cause an error. 1. Extend footprints to include a paste (...) keyword that looks pretty much like the 'pad() keyword. 2. If paste() doesn't exist for a footprint, synthesize one from the pad() information. That way, old footprints work just as they do now. 3. Add a paste layer to carry around the paste() information through all the translation/rotation of the symbol. 0, 1, and 2 I think I can sort out relatively easily. I have no idea how to add a layer and do all the necessary updates for footprint relocation. -dave ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
One of my long-term projects is to add layer types to layers, and allow for sub-circuits (i.e. elements). Then we'd have a true paste layer, and you could define elements as complexly as you need. But it's been on the list for a long time, and hasn't happened yet :-( ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 3:13 AM, Chitlesh GOORAH chitlesh.goo...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Kai-Martin Knaak k...@familieknaak.de wrote: I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) Hello there, I was also interested to see these mechanical opensource projects into Fedora however, there are all stuck behind licensing issues. Is Debian shipping Freecad into their non-free repo or did the licensing issues clear away somehow? http://chitlesh.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/some-licenses-kill-opensource-mechanical-design-flows/ Yes, there have been many times when I wanted to use a program for a larger project but it depended on opencascade. I do not like their license but what I really dislike is how they call it opensource. Cheers, Chitlesh ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user -- http://evanfoss.googlepages.com/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
[snip] http://chitlesh.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/some-licenses-kill-opensource-me= chanical-design-flows/ Yes, there have been many times when I wanted to use a program for a larger project but it depended on opencascade. I do not like their license but what I really dislike is how they call it opensource. Yeah, this is quite unfortunate. A nice thread on Fedora's position (a link from Chitlesh's blog): https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=459125 What is interesting too is that OpenCascade has been accepted into Debian/Ubuntu into the main repository: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/karmic-changes/2009-May/000579.html With the interesting changes: ... * Upstream replaced Triangle by a free implementation, thus external-triangle.patch is removed as well as dependencies against libtriangle-dev. ... * All non-free bits have thus been removed, and opencascade is moved from non-free into main. ... One of the best discussions has been at: http://www.opencascade.org/org/forum/thread_15859 The very last response/paragraph is most telling: So when Open CASCADE becomes LGPL (one day, hopefully) anyone making any modifications will have to license those modifications under LGPL, should he/she will to integrate it into the source base he/she must be ready to disclaim copyright claims. Yes, Open CASCADE is free to use those modifications in its commercial projects, just like anyone else here, and to deliver them to its paying customers ahead of others. So what ? It's fair, it's open source, isn't it ? I don't see a problem here. disclaim copyright claims? Sounds like Open CASCADE S.A.S. wants the unfair advantage in taking code contributions and delivering them to paying customers ahead of others. They want to control everything and that doesn't seem very OSS friendly at all. Either it is open source/free software or it is _not_. The more I think about it, the more I like the chaotic: you contribute something, you own the copyright to that something, and then nobody has an advantage over anybody else. The important lesson here is pick the initial license carefully when starting a new project. I've gone OT for geda-user, sorry. -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 15:12 +, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) ---(kaimartin) And there is http://brlcad.org/ and http://www.sweethome3d.eu/index.jsp The first seems to be mixed LGPL-2 and BSD license -- we have it in main Gentoo tree. The second is clean GPL but not in official tree ( http://bugs.gentoo.org/209696 ) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Kai-Martin Knaak k...@familieknaak.de wrote: I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) Hello there, I was also interested to see these mechanical opensource projects into Fedora however, there are all stuck behind licensing issues. Is Debian shipping Freecad into their non-free repo or did the licensing issues clear away somehow? http://chitlesh.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/some-licenses-kill-opensource-mechanical-design-flows/ Cheers, Chitlesh ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Feb 24, 2010, at 6:09 PM, Girvin R. Herr wrote: Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) ---(kaimartin) Kai, Have you, or anyone in the group, used FreeCAD for any useful work? I just downloaded the source code for Linux and took a look at the docs. Although they may not be up to date (file date of Jan 7, 2010), they have no substance. It is proclaiming there isn't yet much in the way of GUI commands to implement the internal drawing functions. A couple of weeks ago I took a look at the state of FreeCAD, but haven't done anything very useful with it. I had a brief forum chat with the developers. I think they will tell you that the current state is mainly useful to developers. They are driving it via scripts to build things, and gradually adding a GUI. I think if you are expecting much in the way of GUI today, you will have to start following the source code repository and surf the bug frontier along with the developers. Of course, you may find if you download it that I haven't gotten quite the correct impression, because as I said I haven't done much of anything with it yet -- too busy with other things. All that said, FreeCAD has come a huge distance in a year. If they make as much progress in the next year as they have in the past, we will have the makings of a good 3D parametric modeling program. They certainly deserve support and encouragement. If you are looking for 2D CAD, then go with QCad. I've done a lot with that. It is very mature and very solid. I use it for all my 2D CAD designs, and I've used their .dxf I/O library in a CAM program for one of my tools. -dave much stuff snipped out ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
[snip] If you are looking for 2D CAD, then go with QCad. I've done a lot with that. It is very mature and very solid. I use it for all my 2D CAD designs, and I' ve used their .dxf I/O library in a CAM program for one of my tools. Unfortunately the current version of QCad is not free software and their community edition is a really old release which hasn't been updated in years (and is missing basic things like send to back/front). And their is virtually no development community around the community edition. I really doubt they will ever update their community edition as long as people are purchasing the commercial version. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:09:30 -0800, Girvin R. Herr wrote: Have you, or anyone in the group, used FreeCAD for any useful work? Like I said before, at this point in time it is still lacking important features. E.g. there is no support for drilling holes. New primitives are inserted with some fixed size. There is no GUI way to choose from the various modes of movement that are essential for building 3D models. There is no library of standard parts like screws and nuts and no way to do your own library, either. Bottom line: If you want to use freecad for productive work, you'd be a very early adopter. That's why I put on the horizon in the subject line. That said, it seems like the infrastructure is set up and ready for more. About two years ago, when I searched for open source mechanical CAD suites, freecad was mentioned nowhere. So the project has evolved pretty fast. (I restrain myself to compare to the progress in geda and friends ;-) If the developers can keep up the pace, the issues mentioned above will be resolved in a matter of months. Since it fills a major gap in the open source universe, I expect freecad to quickly gather an active community of users/codevelopers. If pcb is to export, or import 3D data, I suggest to choose freecad format. This is fully documented XML with no NDA restrictions or dubious backengineering. In addition, freecad will be able to export to a number of standard 3D formats. however, before I install and/or update a lot of Linux system support libraries for FreeCAD, That's the joy of Debian: The hard work was already done by the maintainer. :^) ---(kaimartin)--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Fri, 2010-02-26 at 01:22 +, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: If pcb is to export, or import 3D data, I suggest to choose freecad format. This is fully documented XML with no NDA restrictions or dubious backengineering. In addition, freecad will be able to export to a number of standard 3D formats. VRML and STEP are the two most important formats in that regard - although probably Freecad will (if it doesn't already) support them at some stage. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:30:09 +, Peter Clifton wrote: If pcb is to export, or import 3D data, I suggest to choose freecad format. This is fully documented XML with no NDA restrictions or dubious backengineering. In addition, freecad will be able to export to a number of standard 3D formats. VRML and STEP are the two most important formats in that regard - IMHO, VRML is more geared toward computer graphics rather than mechanical CAD. Both mechnical CDA applications I used at work, can export VRML, but not import. STEP seems like the ideal candidate as it is specifically meant to cover the ex change of construction data. But the standard is not freely available. In addition it is a monster with thousands of pages. ---(kaimartin)--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Fri, 2010-02-26 at 01:46 +, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:30:09 +, Peter Clifton wrote: If pcb is to export, or import 3D data, I suggest to choose freecad format. This is fully documented XML with no NDA restrictions or dubious backengineering. In addition, freecad will be able to export to a number of standard 3D formats. VRML and STEP are the two most important formats in that regard - IMHO, VRML is more geared toward computer graphics rather than mechanical CAD. Both mechnical CDA applications I used at work, can export VRML, but not import. STEP seems like the ideal candidate as it is specifically meant to cover the ex change of construction data. But the standard is not freely available. In addition it is a monster with thousands of pages. I met with the LiquidPCB developer today, and he's been working on a STEP importer.. so there might be some possible overlap there. He also mentioned that he has a DXF outline - (geda-)PCB converter, which he would make available if anyone wanted it. Best wishes, -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) ---(kaimartin) Don't forget that for 3-D modeling there is BRL-CAD which is fairly mature. http://brlcad.org/ Here are some examples made by someone we used to see on the lists here. http://ronja.twibright.com/3d/ The problem I hit with BRL-CAD was it had a horribly written build system. It was a shining example of how *not* to use autoconf. I got so frustrated by that I stopped playing around with the tool, but that was 4 or 5 years ago and I see there have been releases since then. -Dan ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:36:29 -0500, Dan McMahill wrote: The problem I hit with BRL-CAD was it had a horribly written build system. It was a shining example of how *not* to use autoconf. The problem I had with BRL was a user interface that requires a learning curve as steep as the eiger nordwand. The tutorial needed a multi page section to cover moving parts around. ---(kaimartin)--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
The problem I hit with BRL-CAD was it had a horribly written build system. It was a shining example of how *not* to use autoconf. I got so frustrated by that I stopped playing around with the tool, but that was 4 or 5 years ago and I see there have been releases since then. They use CMake now. I was poking around in BRL-CAD today. They've made so significant progress. They still do need a BRL-CAD For Dummies kind of introduction tho, takes a while just to figure out how to render the demos. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) ---(kaimartin) -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de GPG key:http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmkop=get ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
Could be interesting. Thanks for that! Cheers, Andy. Signality Solutions York, UK t: +44 (0) 5601 720 580 m: +44 (0) 7796 538 192 skype: andyfierman www.signality.co.uk On 24 February 2010 15:12, Kai-Martin Knaak k...@familieknaak.de wrote: I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) ---(kaimartin) -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de GPG key:http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmkop=get ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) ---(kaimartin) Kai, Have you, or anyone in the group, used FreeCAD for any useful work? I just downloaded the source code for Linux and took a look at the docs. Although they may not be up to date (file date of Jan 7, 2010), they have no substance. It is proclaiming there isn't yet much in the way of GUI commands to implement the internal drawing functions. I am looking for a free and Open Source mechanical drawing program to complement gEDA. i.e.: Okay, we have the PWB out for fab, now let's design and document an enclosure! I have been using gschem's drawing capability for much of my projects' mechanical documentation. For the most part, it is acceptable for that, however, gschem has a few limitations, such as lack of drawing ellipses for oval speaker cutouts, that real mechanical drawing programs support. FreeCAD looks promising on the surface; however, before I install and/or update a lot of Linux system support libraries for FreeCAD, I would like to hear from someone who actually found FreeCAD useful at this stage of its development (version 0.9.2646). TIA. Girvin Herr ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
