Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Open-source CAD programs

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #11
    I don't use CAD but perhpas you could give a see on the software listed as Gpl on CAD & Linux: The LUnIx Linux CAD Links presented by Tech-EDV.

    Comment


    • #12
      Originally posted by nanonyme View Post
      Free CAD software tend to suck hard. Know why? Writing a fully functioning stable fully featured CAD program takes so much time people want money after managing to do it.
      (just take a look how much a CAD software costs and you understand what I'm talking about)
      I'm not saying free CAD software has to suck hard. It's just that writing decent opensource CAD software is something that requires a lot more and a lot more skilled manpower than is available. (for free; there's the manpower available if you're willing to pay for it but then we end up back in the beginning with a CAD software you sell)
      Because it's "hard" doesn't mean it will never be done. That's not how free software works, because with free software a single developer isn't expected to carry all the weight, and the code is never completely "dead". Proprietary software is a dead end and a waste though, but it can be a temporary patch on a problem and that can be okay. The time and devpower is available in free software, because it can be the entire world.

      There is a huge list here http://www.tech-edv.co.at/lunix/CADlinks.html which as was noted, but the reason for there not being as big of a selection of either open or closed software on Linux is the same for any other program:

      1) Is it niche software? If so, there will be less.
      2) Linux doesn't have nearly as wide of desktop use as Windows, so there's less software.

      The big advantage of Linux though is since it's open source, it will never go away. The open source software pool will stay, forever, unlike all the throw-away snack boxes which is the Windows software world.

      Getting to the point though, as demand increases, both the open and closed CAD software for Linux will increase in quantity and quality as well.

      You know, if all of the engineering labs from all the schools and colleges in the world got together and paid a tiny bit of money, they could easily fund, or build themselves, an awesome open source CAD program. Sad that there isn't more collaboration between groups with similar interests, huh?

      Comment


      • #13
        Originally posted by Yfrwlf View Post
        You know, if all of the engineering labs from all the schools and colleges in the world got together and paid a tiny bit of money, they could easily fund, or build themselves, an awesome open source CAD program. Sad that there isn't more collaboration between groups with similar interests, huh?
        In theory, yes. In reality a lot of the consumers are big enterprises anyway to which paying $20k for software yearly doesn't really even sting. (and Uni students end up in those enterprises hopefully after graduation so it makes sense for them to be trained to use the same software the enterprises use)

        Comment


        • #14
          Originally posted by nanonyme View Post
          In theory, yes. In reality a lot of the consumers are big enterprises anyway to which paying $20k for software yearly doesn't really even sting. (and Uni students end up in those enterprises hopefully after graduation so it makes sense for them to be trained to use the same software the enterprises use)
          Definitely, but instead of course you have big companies going around trying to get students learning their expensive closed software instead. Educators of the world need to unite, as do governments, and any group of course.

          For tax's sake, every citizen should be trying to push their governments to do this and convert to open source. Do YOU care about your money? I think most citizens would answer yes lol, yes we want to pay less taxes so we want open source and collaborative efforts. I know the U.S. alone would save billions...

          Comment


          • #15
            Originally posted by devius View Post
            Will add that one to the list of software to try. I believe I tried it a long time ago and wasn't ahppy with it, but it may have evolved since then.
            You really should give it another shot. I'm not sure about the command line, but it is rather similar to Autocad.

            Originally posted by devius View Post
            What about FreeCAD I mentioned earlier? It has all the pretty buttons to draw cubes, spheres and all that like most engineering programs I've seen, although it's not my specialty.
            Next time I will check it out. Thanks for the tip!

            Comment


            • #16
              So here I am updating this thread because there have been some developments in this area. I have been trying to get AutoCAD to run under wine, but that is a near impossible mission. I tried so many methods and so many different ACAD versions and still I can't get a fully functional install. Wine sucks. It feels just like a miniature Windows where you have to unistall and reinstall the whole thing when something goes wrong.

              Now the (partial) good news: there is a cheaper AutoCAD alternative program called Bricscad that is being ported to Linux. The Windows classic version costs only 315? which is a really good price. I tried the beta and it mimics the behaviour of AutoCAD very very well. It's practically identical. The only problem is that the current beta has a few graphical corruption issues with ATI graphics cards which make it very hard to get any work done, but it seems that a fix is being worked on for the next beta. Once these issues are sorted this could very well be THE CAD program we have been missing all these years. I'm very excited about this

              Comment


              • #17
                Here I am reporting my latest findings in the area of CAD software for linux users.

                Bricscad is already at final version, although it still has some issues and doesn't have all the features of the Windows version. Still, it's enough to properly do 2D drafting. This software isn't open source nor free, but it is native linux, and that's something. At least we can have some freedom in the choice of OS. The graphical bugs I reported in my last post can be easily solved in the settings dialog by chaging the value of the GL Swap Mode variable.

                Another program making its way into linux is Ares Commander Edition. Right now it's at beta stage but seems to have more funcionality than Bricscad, although it will cost more once it reaches the final version.

                Finally on the free/open-source world there is QCad which has all the features you could expect from a 2D drafting CAD program, but doesn't use the same commands or workflow as autocad, so it's harder to make the switch. It alo uses one of those ugly graphical toolkits that resemble windows 95 or motif or something else designed in the early 1990s. It is very ugly to look at, so if you have sensitive eyes, like me, you won't be able to use it for that reason alone.

                Comment


                • #18


                  It's not out for linux yet and it's closed, but on the plus side it's free.

                  Comment


                  • #19
                    Such a very amazing link!
                    Thanks you for the post.


                    __________________
                    Watch My Soul To Take Online Free

                    Comment


                    • #20
                      Originally posted by devius View Post
                      Finally on the free/open-source world there is QCad which has all the features you could expect from a 2D drafting CAD program, but doesn't use the same commands or workflow as autocad, so it's harder to make the switch. It alo uses one of those ugly graphical toolkits that resemble windows 95 or motif or something else designed in the early 1990s. It is very ugly to look at, so if you have sensitive eyes, like me, you won't be able to use it for that reason alone.
                      It looks like QCad is built using Qt 3, which means it's themeable and you can make it look like anything you want, really. The ugly motif interface might just be the ugly default.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X