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Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

mattkeeter.com

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Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#41

Post by bd_at_rivenhill »

IshKebab wrote: post #15

Having used OpenSCAD, Solidworks and NX fairly extensively, I can say that "code-based" solid modelling systems are good for some specific things - anything that is highly parametric, for example: * Gears and sprockets * Fasteners (nuts & bolts) * Electrical components (ICs, etc) For anything else they aren't at all suitable. It's just a million times easier to be able to click on dimensions on the actual sketch and…

"You're never going to see a power tool or a tractor or whatever designed in OpenSCAD."

I beg to differ on this, I've been using OpenSCAD for a couple of years now, and the two most complicated designs I have done were for a dual drive robot base and a simple 3-axis CNC machine. Many of the parts were COTS (which I built modules for) and the rest were designed for these projects, including some parts which were sent directly to my 3D printer. In doing this, I've been developing various functions and modules that simplify common operations such as attaching two separate parts and using difference to form a free fit hole for a specific type of screw. I find this to be much easier than clicking on dimensions in a sketch, but this is because I have all of the mental habits developed by learning to build complex software.

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#42

Post by ZenoArrow »

castell wrote: post #13
Vorcin83 wrote: post #6

To add a bit of historical perspective, AutoCad could be extended through Lisp (AutoLisp), back in the day. So I posit that this approach is nothing new and unlikely to be what the customers of CAD packages don't already have.

...and later also VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). The same goes for CATIA v5 (VBA).

AutoCAD also allows for .NET and C++ extensions now IIRC. I have a vague memory of JavaScript support coming soon too, perhaps it's already available.

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#44

Post by stefantalpalaru »

jordigh wrote: post #34

Huh, homebrew non-free license. I wonder if the intention was even to make it non-free. It does not allow commercial use, which is forbidden by default. Oh well, at least homebrew licenses are getting rarer and rarer these days.

> It does not allow commercial use

It does, but I agree that the author should choose an established license instead of trying to make one up by putting 3 lines in the README: https://github.com/mkeeter/antimony

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#45

Post by alkonaut »

colomon wrote: post #27

Okay, I'm a CAD software developer instead of an actual CAD engineer, so my perspective may be a bit biased. But this CSG (constructive solid geometry) idea is not in any way new. The reason it's kind of obscure now is that spline-based boundary representation systems (B-reps) took over the market decades ago. If you think about, say, the latest car designs, those free-flowing shapes are pretty easy to do in B-rep, a…

Well, those shapes are hard to accomplish with a CSG of primitive shapes at least. This isn't really "plain CSG" though. I think it uses distance fields (a tree of distance functions), which can be of any kind. The simples ones are just primitives, but anything that has a defined distance could be used, including parametric surfaces, fractals... (If you are using it for actual CAD and not just visualization, you probably want to be able to triangulate though). These distance fields have some neat features when rendering, such as blending, which is hard to do with classical CSG: http://iquilezles.org/www/articles/distfunctions/gfx18.png (from http://iquilezles.org/www/articles/distfunctions/distfunctio...).

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#46

Post by stefantalpalaru »

IshKebab wrote: post #15

Having used OpenSCAD, Solidworks and NX fairly extensively, I can say that "code-based" solid modelling systems are good for some specific things - anything that is highly parametric, for example: * Gears and sprockets * Fasteners (nuts & bolts) * Electrical components (ICs, etc) For anything else they aren't at all suitable. It's just a million times easier to be able to click on dimensions on the actual sketch and…

> "code-based" solid modelling systems

See the presentation video where it's driven from a GUI.

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#47

Post by phkahler »

ranit wrote: post #25
krschultz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A parametric modeler, i.e. every major CAD system in use since 1995, allows you to specify your dimensions based on formulas that use relationships between components. If you look at Solidworks or CATIA and think "man it must be slow to point and click to set dimensions" you are missing how it is actually used in professional practice. The difference between point and clicking dimensions in those tools and how they a…

Exactly my point. "Based on formulas that use relationships between components" means that they have internal language which if used well helps enormously.

No, it means they have an algebraic constraint solver. If you don't have this feature, you don't really have a CAD program.

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#48

Post by jordigh »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #39
jordigh wrote: post #34

Huh, homebrew non-free license. I wonder if the intention was even to make it non-free. It does not allow commercial use, which is forbidden by default. Oh well, at least homebrew licenses are getting rarer and rarer these days.

> It does not allow commercial use, which is forbidden by default. what are you claiming here?

The MIT license says,

"Permission is hereby granted, [snip] including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software"

The right to sell the software is part of the open source and free software definitions. A license needs to specify this, because by default copyright law does not grant this right. This homebrew license does not allow selling the software, thus it fails to be open source.

Failing to meet this part of the definition is why MAME wasn't open source either until last week.

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#50

Post by jordigh »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #44
jordigh wrote: post #34

Huh, homebrew non-free license. I wonder if the intention was even to make it non-free. It does not allow commercial use, which is forbidden by default. Oh well, at least homebrew licenses are getting rarer and rarer these days.

> It does not allow commercial use It does, but I agree that the author should choose an established license instead of trying to make one up by putting 3 lines in the README: https://github.com/mkeeter/antimony

I don't see anything that says that it allows commercial use. It says, "produced, modified, distributed, performed, and displayed for any purpose." Perhaps "for any purpose" is another catch-all for selling, but I'm not sure.
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