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Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

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Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#81

Post by sklogic »

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…

There are some GUI-enabled CADs, but their users still prefer to script their designs instead. This applies to the specialised large-block CADs, like those for plant building, ship building industries and such.

Increasing the level of abstraction makes it more rewarding to express the designs in code instead of dragging things with a mouse.

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#82

Post by [deleted] »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #75
brudgers wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, according to the timeline, it was 2.18, but it lists 2.1 as R6, so despite it's huge impact in allowing the creation of tools like AEC-Architectural it apparently doesn't get its own integer. As a scripting language it seemed to me a pretty good choice, because sat reasonably well with the command-line based interface in that it somewhat reflected its * format. And of course in the 1980's Lisps were tech's "the…

> And of course in the 1980's Lisps were tech's "the sharing economy". One of the reasons I went to vocational school to study drafting was to get my hands on AutoCad to get my hands on AutoLisp to get my hands on a Lisp. In 1991, I was doing timed Cad competitions using R10. My secret weapon was twenty minutes writing my own "PGP" command aliases in AutoLisp with edlin before I started drawing. That's how I won my c…

[deleted]

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#83

Post by zerr »

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…

Btw any advices for those who are interested in CAD/CAM software development? (refs/books/lectures/(remote)jobs)

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#85

Post by Natsu »

retroafroman wrote: post #71
smoyer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Auto-CAD had a Lisp engine in the '80s ... You could automate almost any function of the drawing system, build "macros" as well as patterns and even alter the DXF generation.

You can still run Lisp commands on the commandline interface in AutoCAD. Or even as you type out command inputs. So for example, if you know that you just put in 187 for length, but the next line needs to be double that, you can type (* 2 187) when it's time to put in the length and AutoCAD calculates it.

I thought they turned it into a license feature (so LT doesn't have it, only the full version does)?

But yes, I found AutoLisp to be very useful for automating things. The place I used to work for had to have the CNC machines cut out differently sized shapes from a library of shapes, so I created functions to draw each library shape for me quickly.

This is a lot easier than trying to form four mutually tangent circular arcs into an oval by constructing everything by hand.

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#86

Post by stefanix »

tiles wrote: post #16
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…

The ideal would be both worlds. 3D editor until you want to go in and change specific relations, which would be specified in code. Like editing an SVG or hand-editing its source, it's useful to have the option depending on your toolset.

FreeCAD is a bit like this. See: http://freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Scripted_objects

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#87

Post by Animats »

CSG driven by a hierarchy of operations is the standard approach in CAD today. SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor both work that way. Here's an Inventor tutorial on modeling the wheel of a scooter.[1] I picked this tutorial because the part and the operations used are very similar to the the Antimony screwdriver example.

Antimony looks like a nice entry-level program for this sort of thing. It's way ahead of mesh editors. Those are for graphics, not physical objects. In a mesh editor, you can't move a hole cleanly. In a mesh, the concept of "hole" has been lost.

What you get with the big expensive programs is 1) a GUI that scales well when you need to design something complicated (people do jet engines in these programs), 2) a constraint solver, where you can specify constraints and let the system work out a solution, and 3) lots of additional engineering tools. It's nice to see the low end catching up.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLZzS1k4tLs

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#88

Post by jordigh »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #78
jordigh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sel…

What part of their home-brew license does not allow commercial use? MAME was not free because they explicitly said "Redistributions may not be sold, nor may they be used in a commercial product or activity."

Anything not explicitly allowed is forbidden. That's how copyright law works. "All rights reserved" is the default. You don't even have to claim it. All rights are reserved unless you relinquish them.

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#89

Post by jordigh »

jamessb wrote: post #80
jordigh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

'Selling' and 'Commerical use' are not equivalent. For example, using CAD software to design a product that you subsequently sell would be 'commerical use' of the software, and would be encompassed by the 'any purpose' clause.

"Commercial use" encompasses selling. You are allowed to sell all free software and all open source. This guarantee forms part of the definition. Software that does not have permission to sell it is not free software and is not open source.

Re: Antimony – A fresh look at CAD software

#90

Post by dragonwriter »

jordigh wrote: post #88
cowsandmilk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of their home-brew license does not allow commercial use? MAME was not free because they explicitly said "Redistributions may not be sold, nor may they be used in a commercial product or activity."

Anything not explicitly allowed is forbidden. That's how copyright law works. "All rights reserved" is the default. You don't even have to claim it. All rights are reserved unless you relinquish them.

> Anything not explicitly allowed is forbidden. That's how copyright law works.

Well, no, copyright law works by "anything explicitly made exclusive to the copyright holder by law, and not explicitly allowed by either other provisions of law or the copyright holder is forbidden, unless its in the rather ill-defined -- far from explicitly delimited -- domain of 'fair-use', or implicitly permitted by the copyright holder under implicit license, or..."

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