CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

lamdacore · 2010-05-09 06:56:45

I am an engineering student and I need to do a fair bit of CADing (mostly machinery). Unfortunately, I am forced to boot in to Windows every time!
I was wondering if there are linux alternatives/options; anything for 3d CAD - something of the likes of Solidworks or Inventor.

Suggestions?

Thanks.

uncholowapo · 2010-05-09 11:48:13

Sad to say but I too took engineering 2 years ago where we used Inventor too. The closest thing that came close to being like inventor was blender but I couldn't find any actual good replacement.

jack.mitchell · 2010-05-09 12:02:56

I ran Soidworks/AutoCAD in a virtual machine with no performance issues.

geniuz · 2010-05-09 12:18:44

I don't know what field of engineering you're in, but as an aerospace engineering student I'm using CATIA which is great for 3D design and works under Wine almost perfectly. Although its quite expensive...maybe your university offers a free license?

lamdacore · 2010-05-09 21:13:06

I am a mechanical engineer. The university provides free licenses for Inventor and Solidworks. I thought of using wine, but I was hoping it wouldn't come to that.

I did find Pro Engineer Wildfire. They had linux support till version 3. Though I have no idea how to acquire a cheap/free copy or how something like this should be installed on Arch.

whompus · 2010-05-10 19:19:44

VariCad has a linux version and is aimed towards mechanical engineering.

http://www.varicad.com/en/home/

lamdacore · 2010-05-10 22:31:29

Thanks.
VariCad looks good. Will try it out!

BTW - Any ideas how I can install using a deb or rpm package?

JohnVV · 2010-05-11 04:46:36

run fedora for using the rpm as the web site states

rpm's are just tarbals and can be extracted ,but i would NOT expect a fedora bin file to run on arch

lamdacore · 2010-05-11 04:49:32

I meant installing the program on Arch. No way to "extract" the source from the rpm/deb packages and recompile?

Shaika-Dzari · 2010-05-11 16:20:05

You can uncompress a rpm but you'll only get the binary... not the sources.
You can use rpmextract (avaliable in extra I think).

@+

whompus · 2010-05-11 18:57:23

I have not used VariCad for a long time but this is the very old PKGBUILD for the 32bit version that could possibly be tweaked to work.

pkgname=varicad2008
pkgver=1.04
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="VariCAD is a 3D/2D CAD system for mechanical engineering."
url="http://varicad.com"
license=(Commercial)
arch=(i686)
depends=('qt>=4')
[ "$CARCH" = "x86_64" ] && depends=(lib32-qt)
source=(http://ftp.varicad.com/pub/VariCAD/linux/varicad2008-en_${pkgver}qt4-1_i386.deb)
md5sums=('4318513ef476ba56108ef72cfb44f067')
options=(!STRIP)

build() {
cd $startdir/src
ar -x varicad2008-en_${pkgver}qt4-1_i386.deb
ls -l > /dev/null # i need to do this or tar doesn't find the tarball on my pc
tar xfz data.tar.gz -C $startdir/pkg
}

samuele.mattiuzzo · 2010-05-12 08:51:10

guys i'm really interested in this post! i'm working (since last month...) for a company that produces boilers, frying machines and other similar industrial machines, and we have 2 designers using solid works to design the machines schemas. our windows lan isn't really stable, and the server slows down too often, so i was trying to move all the computers to linux and fix the network with a nfs server, but i first have to find a valid replacement for SolidWorks (or this cannot be done)

can you give me any hint if this VariCad is the replacement i was looking for? i'm a developer, so i cannot explain you any better what they do, but i can give you our website (it's a 2k's website made by the owner itself, i'm working on the new one, so i'd be grateful if you could not laugh too much ) so you can have a view on what they're producing, and maybe help me out!

http://www.abar.it/

thanks to you all!

edit: i forgot to post the link to the website :-/

Last edited by samuele.mattiuzzo (2010-05-12 09:04:07)

lamdacore · 2010-05-12 09:26:39

I am going to try freecad soon (seems it takes a while to build though).
Varicad only comes with .deb or .rpm packages. Will try later after I can figure out how to get a pkgbuild out of them (possibly something like deb2targz or rpmextract as Shaika-Dzari suggested).

@whompus thanks for the pkgbuild.

btw I was trying to get the 64 bit version working.

cl10k · 2010-05-12 10:50:24

@samuele.mattiuzzo:

Sry, but depending on th complexity of your models, there is no replacement for Solidworks (or Catia) on Linux!

lamdacore · 2010-05-12 22:23:12

cl10k wrote:

@samuele.mattiuzzo:
Sry, but depending on th complexity of your models, there is no replacement for Solidworks (or Catia) on Linux!

I was afraid of this. Will still try freecad/varicad and see how much I can do with them.

sand_man · 2010-05-13 01:56:34

samuele.mattiuzzo wrote:

guys i'm really interested in this post! i'm working (since last month...) for a company that produces boilers, frying machines and other similar industrial machines, and we have 2 designers using solid works to design the machines schemas. our windows lan isn't really stable, and the server slows down too often, so i was trying to move all the computers to linux and fix the network with a nfs server, but i first have to find a valid replacement for SolidWorks (or this cannot be done)
can you give me any hint if this VariCad is the replacement i was looking for? i'm a developer, so i cannot explain you any better what they do, but i can give you our website (it's a 2k's website made by the owner itself, i'm working on the new one, so i'd be grateful if you could not laugh too much ) so you can have a view on what they're producing, and maybe help me out!
http://www.abar.it/
thanks to you all!
edit: i forgot to post the link to the website :-/

Kind of off topic but you can run a Linux/UNIX network with Windows clients if you need to.
There was an interesting article in BSD magazine on how to setup a Windows domain controller using OpenBSD.

lamdacore · 2010-05-14 09:13:44

Freecad is not at all a replacement. It is interesting to try out though. . .

joaca_rj · 2010-05-15 00:11:46

Bricscad just released a beta version for linux, totally native this time (no winelib)...
http://www.bricsys.com/open/en_INTL/common/download.jsp?p=B4L&mw=500&mh=500&utm_source=mailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linuxbeta

akephalos · 2010-05-17 05:28:20

Shaika-Dzari wrote:

You can use rpmextract (avaliable in extra I think).

I put here a quick and dirty method to create a package from an RPM: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 02#p759902
It's very convenient to have an Arch package built from the rpm.

louipc · 2010-05-26 13:04:56

BRL-CAD is probably the best open-source 3D CAD software package available. However, it is very different from Solidworks or Inventor. It offers import/export for many different formats including dxf, proe, and iges.

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=8320

Alexvader · 2010-05-27 14:36:18

Hi

I am also Mechanical Engineer,

Has Varicad been run successfully in Arch...?

The 2010 x86_64 version I mean...

Need the models so as to build assemblies and mesh them to make FEA analysis...

Several options are under consideration,

Using Varicad, or Salome Platform...

I tried salome Platform, but this does not work in Arch...

So has Varicad been run in Arch already...?

Thanks in advance

BRGDS

Alex

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-09 06:56:45

CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#2 2010-05-09 11:48:13

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#3 2010-05-09 12:02:56

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#4 2010-05-09 12:18:44

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#5 2010-05-09 21:13:06

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#6 2010-05-10 19:19:44

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#7 2010-05-10 22:31:29

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#8 2010-05-11 04:46:36

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#9 2010-05-11 04:49:32

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#10 2010-05-11 16:20:05

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#11 2010-05-11 18:57:23

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#12 2010-05-12 08:51:10

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#13 2010-05-12 09:26:39

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#14 2010-05-12 10:50:24

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#15 2010-05-12 22:23:12

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#16 2010-05-13 01:56:34

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#17 2010-05-14 09:13:44

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#18 2010-05-15 00:11:46

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#19 2010-05-17 05:28:20

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#20 2010-05-26 13:04:56

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

#21 2010-05-27 14:36:18

Re: CAD software Solidworks/Inventor?

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