On Sun, 2004-04-25 at 23:28, plain wrote:
Unfortunately this is an area where linux needs to make major inroads. lack of a decent cad package for linux is the only reason i have vmware and a w2k "guest" os installed in my suse 9.0 system. parametric solids, assemblies, detail drawings, surfacing, cam etc are back in the 18th century as far as linux is concerned. btw, before anyone complains, I am talking about "real" cad, not "design your porch" cad. A cad package must be capable of drawing a boat, a plane, a telescope, a space shuttle, a toilet, a submarine, a perfume bottle, a bicycle, an F1 car, a plastic fork and so on. That is an assembly, all the individual parts, all the solids, all the BOM's, all the solids and shells for fea analysis, all the surfaces for cnc machining etc etc... If a package can't do what solidworks, autocad or pro-engineer do at least as easily as swx, acad or pro-e, then it is not a "real" package.
Hi! Now I understand why VariCad people look down their nose at my 2D architectural stuff :-) I solve electrical power and lighting problems for buildings. My drawings coordinate this with mechanical ventillation controls, fire detection systems, maybe even security systems during construction or facility modernization projects. My professional engineering stamp says "Electrical".
VX works does that, it used to run on a linux system, i have been trying to get them to restart linux support, but they need to hear from many more.
Please "hit" them at www.Vx.com
Also, consideer encouraging (maybe contributing to ?) the Open Source Software efforts like Varkon http://www.tech.oru.se/cad/varkon (parametric design) and PythonCad at http://www.pythoncad.org For the un-mentionable cad that uses Linux in its name, see http://www.zip.com.au/~erikd/lcad.html
tia d. [ clipped ]