Arch Linux

Grazz256

Member

Registered: 2009-06-28

Posts: 69

Solid Modeling (3D Cad/Cam)

Id would really like to have a decent solid modeller on arch, does anyone have experience with the available Linux solid modellers?

These are the ones I've found and my thoughts...

freecad... If I could manage to compile it was unusable do to various bugs
graphiteone... no archlinux packages, other packages don't seem to work on arch (wrong unicode encoding in python)
varicad... havn't tried it yet, but looks promising
medusa4... downloaded installer, I'm dubious about installing it however as it uses its own graphical installer
gcad3d... no x86_64 version
proeng.. I'm not 100% but it looks like they have discontinued the linux version
brlcad.. trying it out now, first thought is that it seems a bit complicated...

any thoughts?

Cheers

Last edited by Grazz256 (2010-01-29 15:41:23)

silentcontender

Member

Registered: 2009-12-16

Posts: 15

Re: Solid Modeling (3D Cad/Cam)

I've tried looking for 3D CAD and CAD in general, but there really aren't many choices.  I use AutoCAD and Solidworks, and there isn't any thing free and linux-base that works even as close as those.

_alexmyself

Member

From: france

Registered: 2005-09-18

Posts: 89

Re: Solid Modeling (3D Cad/Cam)

http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/

just to add one, the last i've heard of..

Mikko777

Member

From: Suomi, Finland

Registered: 2006-10-30

Posts: 837

Re: Solid Modeling (3D Cad/Cam)

Here's a few proprietary apps:

CATIA
QCAD
VariCAD

Free one for electronics:

KiCAD
http://kicad.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

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cl10k

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-12-24

Posts: 92

Re: Solid Modeling (3D Cad/Cam)

unfortunately there is only a windows version of catia (v5)...

fini_fly

Member

From: Georgetown, Ontario

Registered: 2009-11-20

Posts: 71

Website

Re: Solid Modeling (3D Cad/Cam)

Catia and SolidWorks are owned by Dassault and going forward, they are only offering support on Windows. Older version of Catia V5 run on Solaris, but not Linux.

As for ones on Linux:

I've used VariCAD and it's good to a point. If you need to make simple static models, then you're fine. The last time I checked, VariCAD does not allow for kinematic constraints, which makes it difficult (but not impossible) to make moving models. The student version is only like $100 for a year licence, so it's fairly economical.

I've tried for a long time to get freecad installed but I always run into compiling errors as per another one of my threads.

BRLCAD is an option, but I haven't used it in depth. I know the US Army uses it, so it cannot be that bad.

ProEngineering Wildfire 3 runs on Linux, but it is outdated as Wildfire 5 is the current release (I think) but is only available for Windows.

I've never heard of/tried medusa4, but don't I wouldn't worry about a program that has it's own graphics installer. Matlab does and runs on Linux just fine.

If you are doing intense CAD stuff, you should probably be in windows using Catia, SolidWorks, ProE or AutoCAD

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Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel.