Open-Source CAD Tools? 14
curtS asks: "Oregon, though with a significant technology industry, continues to use pencil and drawing board in most high school drafting classes. This does little to assist students in career preparation, whether they're interested in drawing PCBs or kitchen cabinets. Not surprisingly, a central issue is cost. High-performance hardware is, thanks to AMD, becoming more available, but what about software? Are there open-source tools out there that can help? Any experiences in other locales?" Would anyone familiar with any Open Source CAD packages care to comment on their experiences? In what area do the open source packages need to improve (if any) to bring them up to par with the functionality of their commercial counterparts?
Re:a quick search (Score:1)
There's even a nice tutorial (textbook) on Blender called 'The Blender Book' by Carsten Wartmann.
Blender is primarily intended for 3D graphics and movie rendering. I think that it would also be suitable for a highschool course on CAD.
I've used Catia and Unigraphics for years in the auto industry (designing air intake systems), so I can speak from experience and say that: The 3-Dimensional thought process is more valuable to teach students than it is to learn/use a precise '2-D drawing program' that many of the lower-end CAD packages are. Here's why:
1. All advanced solids modeling packages support schematic drawings, so students will still learn about Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing issues. (Actually, Blender doesn't do this, but the rest of the benefits are more important.)
2. 3-D thinking is like a language/art, children need to get an early start. How do you build a complicated 3-D shape out of simple spheres/cubes/prisms? This is a very important issue and it seperates a good designer from a bad designer. Looking at 2 different complicated 3-D CAD models that both have the same shape, one might rotate/scale/refresh on the screen as smoothly as a Quake 1 on a 1 GHz Athalon, and the other might take 1/2 hour to rebuild/refresh and rotate like Quake 3 on a Pentium 90. My job when I started was to take other companies' CAD models and rebuild them the right way.
3. Finally, Blender opens up possibilities in the graphic design market. The advanced lighting, surfacing, and reflection techniques present in Blender are not available in even the best 4 CAD packages (Catia, Unigraphics, Ideas, ProEngineer). You don't have to teach this in a class where CAD is the focus, but the motivated students will have the option to learn these.
Intellicad,Intellicad,Intellicad,Intellicad....... (Score:1)
I really can't say enough good things about the package. At the start it did suffer a bit from speed and memory restrictions. Layering was a bit askew for a while but they seem to have got all of those problems sorted out. The most annoying thing really about the package was the lack of documentation for the VBA support. Which ACAD has since replicated. The VBA support was solid and extremely flexible. We did a few test applications for it, one of which was a front-end gui for the package which took away most of the functionality and replaced it with 3 check buttons. New drawing (which then brought you to a new dialog with the various drawing options, base sheet size, template etc. Open drawing and Close the program. Doubt very much if ACAD would allow you to do this.
Best of luck to the people that are continuing the development. You've got at least one customer here.
Possible apps (Score:1)
A much-underrated directory of apps for linux.
Re:QCad, BRL-CAD and more. (Score:1)
Shouldn't it be public domain since it is from our government? What allows them to license it?
Software tools are minimally important (Score:1)
The CAD tool part of it is easy to pick up isn't a fundamental part of the skills I consider important. When I'm interviewing candidates direct out of school my eyes glaze when they tell me how many software packages they know how to use or how many languages they've used. Tell me about a project you've been involved in, tell me how you went about the design project.
The tools I use now will be obsolete in a few years, sooner if I change companies. The skills I have will be valuable forever.
I consider knowing languages analogous to knowing how to flip burgers. Sure, you've flipped burgers at McDonald's, that doesn't mean you're a chef.
What about OpenCascade? (Score:2)
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No Good Open Source CAD Programs Available (Score:2)
There is a CAD program called IntelliCAD [intellicad.org] that Visio developed before being bought by Microsoft. It's basically an AutoCAD clone, minus some of the 3D features (it even runs AutoLISP routines). Now its source code is available, albeit not under an open source or free software license.
On its online forum, several people expressed interest in porting it to Linux. One of its former developers from Visio said it should be possible, as the core code is pretty much ISO C++. The part that wouold take the most effort to port would be the GUI, as it's all MFC presently.
Some people have had success running it under WINE.
Absotively (Score:2)
From that, on my own, I designed my first PC board on paper, transferred it to copper-clad with carbon-paper. I then learned how to do it with EDA software.
I even designed one by hand at a job because it was a simple circuit and I wanted to do it quickly.
It's kind of like understanding assembly better when you've done digital courses.
Learn to do it by hand FIRST (Score:2)
Drafting is one of those skills (Like woodworking) where learning to do it by HAND, first, is an important skill. There will be many times where you have to lay out a print etc on a physical item. Your NOT going to fit a slab of sheet metal in your laser printer.
The skill you learn, like what the different line types mean, and HOW to do a layout carries over just fine, and in fact, rapidly shows you the real limitations of most of the lower end CAD programs out there - and I count AutoCAD as a lower end cad! AutoCAD, and a LOT of the other CAD programs out there are great for architectural CAD by stink to mechanical CAD
That said, there is a AutoCAD clone, called Intellicad, that is available free, from http://www.cadopia.com
Acceptance (Score:2)
be it beer or speech.
While the open-source CAD tools may be on par with autocad and the like, the fact that they are open source, or made for linux, will be something that would keep even cash-strapped districts away from it, because "its not something they can trust, with no 800 number they can call with problems and get a chance to pay to listen to classical music for an hour" (I've actually heard a teacher say this)
While the Open-source movement is gaining a lot of ground, which is a great thing, it still has lots of work to be done to get people to accept the fact that M$ is not part of the government and they dont need to pay the Micro$oft tax on each piece of computer equipment they buy.
two suggestions (Score:2)
For 2D CAD I can recommend Qcad http://www.qcad.org [qcad.org], it runs under linux (requires Qt 2.x), of course you can always try to compile it for other platforms. Advantages: supports DXF (Autocad), has dimensioning, multiple undo, advanced snapping functions. Disadvantages: slow user interface (too much clicking required). Qcad has also a non-free brother "CAM Expert".
Re:two suggestions (Score:2)
QCad, BRL-CAD and more. (Score:3)
QCad, for Qt, is a passable 2D drafting program which is totally free and is similar to TurboCAD. It would work fine for basic 2D mechanical drawings.
LinuxCAD is worthless. Don't waste your money on that piece of crap.
BRL-CAD, courtesy of the US Army Ballistics Research Lab, will work on Linux and can do raytracing, and has 3D solid modeling capabilities. Your school could probably get a free license from the US Army if you ask nicely and promise not to export the program to Iraq. It doesn't have dimensioning capabilities; however if you have a Top Secret government clearance, you can get optional plug-in modules so that if you draft a tank, you can hit it with a simulated laser beam an analyse the damage. I just have the basic package myself, and its pretty cool for being free. The coffee mug from the tutorial looks very nice in raytraced mode.
And thats it. Take your pick.
a quick search (Score:3)
CYCAS [cycas.de] - not sure if it's open-source, but will run on Linux and BSD and looks pretty powerful
Jcad [gnuchina.org] - written in Java, this is an open-sourced CAD which works with DXF file formats. Not the most powerful of tools out there, but it's a start
iCADis [nocrew.org] - can't tell much from the site, but it might be worth a try. Uses GTK and is covered by the GPL
OCTree [octree.de] - looks like it has a really innovative interface. Not sure about the license though.
Varicad [varicad.com] - for mechanical engineering. Looks good, but unsure if it's open.
QCad [qcad.org] - seems to be one of the better ones, and it's open.
That's all I can find. You can judge yourself if you need it to be 100% open-source, if you need it to be free, and if you need it to run on a particular platform. Perhaps you might settle on a combination of these, since it doesn't look likely that you'll find something that meets all 3 conditions (assuming you were looking for it).
If you're a programmer, then by all means help out with one of the open-source projects out of the ones mentioned above. Lots of them could use things like improved rendering (speed, effects etc), and the ability to load lots of different file formats.