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BRL-CAD

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Re: BRL-CAD

#41

Post by brlcad »

Accujack wrote: post #26
marcodiego wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We heard similar comments about linux and GNU a few decades ago.

...and at the same time, GNU was making the same comments about CAD software. It's been on the list of desired projects for GNU since about 1990 - a CAD program comparable to AutoCAD. The problem is that writing one takes a big effort - like Linux kernel sized, and needs people with niche technical knowledge. It's much, much easier to find someone who can write a java app for a web page than it is to find someone who…

There was discussion a few years ago about adding CAD to the list of free software priority areas, to direct talent and energy where it's needed. That would likely help. Finding ways to leverage existing efforts too. BRL-CAD has been working bottom-up with a focus on analytic correctness, capability, hybrid representation. FreeCAD has been working top-down with a focus on usability and parametric interactive editing. Both will likely get there eventually tailored to different markets.

For what it's worth, BRL-CAD has over 450 full-time staff years of effort invested with ongoing dev funded by the U.S. Gov't. It was made open source specifically so that investment could be shared with the world, to help commoditize CAD like has been done for browsers and compilers. It's a long road to get there no matter what.

Re: BRL-CAD

#42

Post by brlcad »

stew-j wrote: post #32

Our company wrote C++ and Ruby wrappers around BRL-CAD a number of years ago for scripted CAD, here is the tutorial for the radio example: https://mirrors.sarata.com/non-gnu/tovero/Tovero_tutorial.pd... We used it for a few small projects. BRL-CAD also has Tcl scripting. We've currently switched to pure Common Lisp and F-rep modeling for scripted CAD. This is the old CL one (again wrapped C++) we are porting: https:/…

That radio tutorial conversion is awesome.

Looks like the code is at http://svn.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/tovero/trunk/ ? That's some impressive work, particularly some of the advanced geometry entity mapping going on in there.

Re: BRL-CAD

#43

Post by brlcad »

linkdink wrote: post #33
digdugdirk wrote: post #4

As a Mechanical Engineer, I would absolutely love to see something like this (or Freecad/OpenSCAD/etc) step up to the "Blender level" to functionally compete against Solidworks. Its expensive, its buggy, and it requires a beast of a computer to function in any semi-respectable way. Does anyone have any experience in the software side of the industry to help explain why nothing open source is able to step up in a mean…

I speak from two types of experience - both a user of CAE and a developer of CAE. There's no money in CAD by itself, meaning just the drawing part. Drafting is a low-value activity often performed by low-value workers who don't write software. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't make software tools for themselves. It's not like when web developers make web development tools, or when machinists make machinist tools.…

Your comment is incredibly insightful, more than many people will realize.

Case in point, BRL-CAD has had more than 450 years of full-time effort invested, tens of millions with development spanning over four decades. However, that investment is heavily centered around features, integrations, and capabilities that are not as typically useful to the general public.

Usability's slowly expanded, but primary paid focus is military vulnerability and lethality analyses where BRL-CAD is absolutely unparalleled. Even against the likes of CATIA, Creo, NX, Solidworks, etc., development is heavily and strategically optimized and invested for solid geometric analysis, validity, verification, and performance. BRL-CAD so overwhelmingly outperforms the commercial tools in the analysis space and is so well-integrated that it would likely cost tens of millions to stop using it.

Still, general usability is not funded and is left to the auspices of the open source community. That's a long road. Adding usability and developing infrastructure for a system that complex takes time and a level of expertise that isn't common. Until it gets minimum viable general usability, it's hard to scratch one's own itch without personal investment or extrinsic incentives.

Re: BRL-CAD

#44

Post by threatripper »

linkdink wrote: post #33
digdugdirk wrote: post #4

As a Mechanical Engineer, I would absolutely love to see something like this (or Freecad/OpenSCAD/etc) step up to the "Blender level" to functionally compete against Solidworks. Its expensive, its buggy, and it requires a beast of a computer to function in any semi-respectable way. Does anyone have any experience in the software side of the industry to help explain why nothing open source is able to step up in a mean…

I speak from two types of experience - both a user of CAE and a developer of CAE. There's no money in CAD by itself, meaning just the drawing part. Drafting is a low-value activity often performed by low-value workers who don't write software. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't make software tools for themselves. It's not like when web developers make web development tools, or when machinists make machinist tools.…

Suppose that there would be an open source CAD software that does all the basic things right (like Blender). I agree with you that probably nobody would pay big money for that. That's one reason why it doesn't exist today. But suppose that it exists. Why then would all those "plugin makers" invest in a specific proprietary software when they could extend the open source software instead? Why would users want a proprietary software when they could use the open source software instead?

To me it sounds like professional CAD is really hard and nobody can "just make it" in a few years of work. That's the reason why open source CAD doesn't really exist today in the professional space. But once it exists, it will eat the world. The transition phase will still take dozens of years because of all the work invested in existing platforms. We will probably see something similar to the adoption of Linux in the commercial space where it simply makes sense to use Linux instead of developing your own OS or licensing some other OS.

Re: BRL-CAD

#45

Post by threatripper »

samwillis wrote: post #15
threatripper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CAD geometry kernel is the problem. It needs to handle a ton of different features and gets very complex very quickly. FreeCAD uses OpenCASCADE which is also used by quite a few other programs. This kernel dates back to the 90s and is supported by a company. See: https://wiki.freecadweb.org/OpenCASCADE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cascade_Technology

This completely, OpenCASCADE is just not a good enough foundation to build something as powerful and stable as SolidWorks on, and I'm not convinced it could become one. It would take 10s millions dollars and many years to build a new geometric kernel that would allow an open source CAD package to compete at the same level as the "Pro" packages. That would require a massively collaborative effort in the engineering co…

I'm not sure if "OpenCASCADE is just not a good enough" in the architectural sense or if they just don't have the manpower. When I looked into some bugs a while ago it sounded like "yeah, we've know this bug for years, we would like to work on it but don't have the manpower right now". Just adding outside contributions to such a project is probably also not possible because the components interact in many ways and you have great potential to introduce a lot of subtle bugs.

Re: BRL-CAD

#46

Post by yetihehe »

threatripper wrote: post #9
CmdrLoskene wrote: post #6

I once worked as a developer for Pro/Engineer, and sometime after that, I was on the user side using BRL-CAD. I can't speak to the quality of the product these days, but at the time, BRL-CAD was achingly slow and riddled with bugs. Using it for my day-to-day work made me want to quit my job, and I left as soon as I had something more promising lined up. I am sorry to sound like I'm unfairly judging BRL-CAD. Perhaps w…

Did you have many different problems with BRL-CAD or was it connected to specific features? While I can't speak for BRL-CAD my experience with FreeCad which uses OpenCascade has been mixed. The chamfer/fillet tool there is just broken. If you use that and change some dimension it is likely to randomly crash. So, overall my experience has been ranging from rock solid to total trash depending on which features you use…

Since FreeCad 0.19 I didn't have any crashes, previously I couldn't even finish simple objects without it crashing. I'm now a happy user, previously I didn't even want to touch it.

Re: BRL-CAD

#47

Post by threatripper »

yetihehe wrote: post #46
threatripper wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have many different problems with BRL-CAD or was it connected to specific features? While I can't speak for BRL-CAD my experience with FreeCad which uses OpenCascade has been mixed. The chamfer/fillet tool there is just broken. If you use that and change some dimension it is likely to randomly crash. So, overall my experience has been ranging from rock solid to total trash depending on which features you use…

Since FreeCad 0.19 I didn't have any crashes, previously I couldn't even finish simple objects without it crashing. I'm now a happy user, previously I didn't even want to touch it.

Yeah, I have the feeling that it's gaining momentum.

Re: BRL-CAD

#48

Post by gpderetta »

fezfight wrote: post #37
SideQuark wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And IBM and RedHat both poured literally billions into it to make it work at the level it does today, which underscores the point. And there have been billions more poured in from a lot of other corporate groups.

Yeah. Sometimes someone brilliant does something hard for the good of humanity though. I'm think specifically of that guy who wrote DXVK back in the mid 2010s. He basically made gaming on Linux possible.

He is certainly brilliant (I remember how quickly it went from showing a single triangle to actually having working games), but was quickly hired by Valve to work on it full-time.

Re: BRL-CAD

#49

Post by hactually »

brlcad wrote: post #38
phkahler wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Solvespace is cool though and that's the one I'm praying for, personally. Current Solvespace maintainer here. IMHO there is a lot that can readily be added to solvespace. Then there could be a big effort to do hierarchical sketches. And it is reasonably possible to rewrite some of the geometry internals if needed. All of these things are a LOT of work. The problem is the number of people with the background, softw…

Licensing notwithstanding, it'd be cool if we could find a way to collaborate. I just learned about solvespace this past year and kudos on your progress. Spot on the nose about number of people and their endurance tilting at the hard problems. BRL-CAD's been going at it longer than anyone, and the backlog only increases. I do believe open source CAD can get there, but it'll require more coordination.

I'd be keen to be party to this - off the back of the recent Fusion 360 fiasco i've met a few others interested in this.

Currently researching geometric modelling kernels but collaboration in the community and bringing focus would solve this... even if it's better awareness and marketing so that solvespace folk and brlcad folk (and more!) aren't doubling up.

Re: BRL-CAD

#50

Post by hulitu »

justinsaccount wrote: post #21

I used this in 1999 or so when I had just started out using linux. It was a huge pain to get running. It was for US citizens only or something, and I had to have my parents write to the government requesting the decryption key for the installer. It may have required something crazy like a fax. After I got it running I had some trouble getting it to do things and wrote to the email address asking for example files. Mi…

This is what kept me away from it. You won't have many users when you encrypt your files and the user has to request decription keys from .mil mail addresses.
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