[Noisebridge-discuss] Open Source CAD? [discuss/demo? @ 83c tonight]

[Michael Shiloh]

Qi (the phoenix from the ashes of openmoko) is looking to do all of 
their work in FOSS, and they are doing a fair bit of research into what 
tools to use. i think so far they have arrived at the same conclusions 
you have.

interestingly, though, part of the mission of qi is to encourage and 
possibly support (possibly, but not necessarily monetarily,) the 
development of any necessary tools along the way, so you may want to 
check the qi website (which is a blog) to see the current state.

http://www.qi-hardware.com/

m

John Magolske wrote:
> * stars <stars at MIT.EDU> [090714 11:37]:
>> Has anyone played around with open [mechanical] CAD programs like
>> BRL CAD/mged, or any others? 1) I'm pretty psyched about open cad,
>> and I wanna know what's popular and in use or worth using
> 
> I've been using mechanical CAD in my work for years (mostly AutoCAD,
> Pro-E & SolidWorks) and would love to find a decent open CAD solution,
> but I don't think there's much in the way of reasonably powerful FOSS
> programs in this field. I'd be happy to be proven wrong about this...
> or at least find something capable that runs in a *nix environment.
> 
> As Joachim mentioned, there's QCAD, which is a fairly basic 2D
> program...haven't tried QCAD Professional (cost = €24.00), curious
> to know how much additional functionality it provides over the GPL'd
> Community Edition:
> http://www.qcad.org/qcad_downloads.html
> http://www.qcad.org/store/
> 
> Also GPL'd is VARKON, a Parametric CAD-tool from Sweden:
> http://varkon.sourceforge.net/index.htm
> 
> HeeksCAD is under the BSD License & has been built for Windows,
> Ubuntu, Debian, and OpenSUSE:
> http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/
> http://code.google.com/p/heekscnc/
> 
> Some non-FOSS (& unfortunately MSFT only) freeware:
> Solid Edge 2D Drafting ... drawing layout, Goal Seeking, diagramming,
> and dimensioning. It is fully compliant with ISO, ANSI, BSI, DIN, JIS
> and UNI, and it's absolutely FREE to download and use.
> http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/velocity/solidedge/free2d/index.shtml
> 
> Also non-FOSS and probably quite expensive, but multi-platform
> (Linux/Unix, OS X in addition to MSFT) & quite capable is Parasolid:
> http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/open/parasolid/index.shtml
> http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/open/parasolid/portfolio/supported.shtml
> 
> There are other expensive & super-capable CAD programs that run on
> Linux/UNIX (Pro-E & UG/NX come to mind). I'd be curious to find out
> the relative merits of them (price, functionality, user-base) in the
> event that purchasing a seat or two for the Noisebridge space at some
> point might become a reality. There has been some discussion about how
> cool it would be to get a license for SolidWorks -- and I'd be happy
> to teach folks how to use it should that come to pass. It is a pretty
> practical an widely used program... but I've been looking forward to
> finding something that will run on Linux.
> 
> If anyone would like to join in on this discussion, maybe download
> & try out QCAD, VARKON, HeeksCAD, Solid Edge 2D ... explore the
> mystifying BRL etc., I'm heading over to the space tonight, should be
> there by around 8pm. I figure it's somewhat shop class related :)
> 
> 
> John
> 
>