CAD packages.

[paul]

baylisst said:

Havoc,
Wow! That's some answer you've given there. You're obviously a whiz on the computor. I've been using various types of CAD since 1984 and I don't understand half of what you posted (but in my defence I am an oldie).
Could you please explain what a single distro, specific libs and a beta are.
TIA
Tim

Tim 'distributions' and 'libraries' are Linux operating system talk - if you use Windoze you can just forget you ever heard 'em, they're nothing to do with CAD per se

EDIT: A free CAD for Windows:

www.a9tech.com/

[havoc]

As Paul said, this was in reply to the question about cad on linux. I'm not a whiz on the pc, far from it otherwise I would have solved the problems I mentioned...

But just in short in case you ever want to try linux:
Distro: "linux" as an operating system doesn't exist. It is composed of the linux kernel (the active part that runs the computer), the libraries (that describe how things must be executed) and a load of software. Now in order to have a pc running linux that is capable of actually doing something there are organisations that make a package of a certain version of the kernel, add the needed libraries and then put together a consistent package of it all that works together. That result is a distribution (in short a "distro"). Sad thing about linux is that there is no single way to organise stuff. You can put the libs in /lib, /usr/lib, /usr/local/lib etc. Now if you compile an application it isn't a problem because the tools know where everything is. But if you receive a pre-compiled package all bets are off because it may assume to find something at a very specific location and not find anything.

Libs: short for libraries. These contain function call to do a specific thing. Graphical libs make your screen accesible, fftw contains all kinds of fast fourier transforms, opengl contains another set of graphical functions, etc. These are sometimes dependent on each other and tied to specific versions (1.0, 1.1, 1.5, 2.0 etc).

beta: software that isn't finished yet but more or less functional. It is good enough to test it and you are supposed to report on any issues you find with enough information so the problem can be eliminated. (exsist also in windows, some people insist that windows is beta software)

[Noddy]

There are pirate copies of autocad 2000 doing the rounds, just make sure your net connection is unplugged if you do use one.

Autocad is a sod to learn, I did evening classes to get going with it, but unless you use it regularly it is soon forgotten.

2000 is more intuitive than 14, later versions just seem to add more tools for team working (like for 100 engineers working on a new airliner design).

I did download a9 CAD (it's free) but it was sooooooooo sllllloooooowwwwww........ 10 minutes to save.

Sun Star office and I think open office have .DXF capability, but I have not experimented with them. open office is free to download, but is constantly like a beta (it's buggy), star office is about £30 from amazon, and is almost as good as microsoft's obese office that costs 10x as much.

[jbanfie]

Hi,

Personally I've got Solidworks which is great, and more importantly other vendors seek to integrate with it, so my CAM software adds a menu to Solidworks, so when you have drawn a part you click on the launch CAM button, Solidworks saves a 3D drawing and the CAM software opens with your part already recognised and drawn, then you click the 'Make it' button and the CAM software spits out the G code for my mill - nice.

So my point is that you don't just want a CAD package, you want a drawing to job solution, I'd have a conversation with your laser cutting friends to determine the best way for the two of you to communicate before you spend any money, DXF files are OK, but there appears to be better standards, I think my CAD and CAM communicate with IGES files???

You may find that they run BobCAM on the laser cutter, and therefore getting BobCAD might be a better choice.

I'm new to all this myself, but the 12 months research I put in before committing to CAD/CAM/MILL etc taught me that the easier you make this stuff to communicate with each other, the less pain you will suffer.

Good luck

Jon

[barryc]

If you need some work doing on CAD let me know via PM, I might be able to help.
Cheers
Barry