Linux Aided Design

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit will make the life easier to Linux CAD users and vendors

2012-02-25T21:24:00.000+02:00

As you probably already know all the .dwg-based Linux CAD are 32bit only and their installation on 64bit Ubuntu systems is currently painful. But this will change soon...
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will come with working multiarch support which will make the installation of these packages easier. This feature also makes the life of Linux CAD vendors easier because they don't have to make different packages of their programs and post some specific installation instructions for 64bit systems.
I have tested the installation of Bricscad V12 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Alpha 2 64bit. The only problem I experienced was that I had to install manually ia32-libs in order to get Bricscad to look pretty. Without this package Bricscad worked but looked ugly.

P.S. DraftSight still needs a more tricky installation due to bad packaging but definitely less painful than Ubuntu 11.10.

Highlights of Bricscad V12 Linux: Screenshot tour

2012-02-23T14:15:00.001+02:00

Fully editable tables can be created or imported from csv files.

Here is a test file created with LibreOffice Calc

Editing the above table

Flatshot command creates 2D profiles from 3D solids in model space

The Quad cursor in action for easy and fast 3D direct modelling

The Solprof command is similar to Flatshot but in paper space

Hatch wipeout!

Refedit allows to edit xref's directly

With this command you can: select which entity of the xref you want to edit and lock the others,
add/remove entities to set,draw new geometry, save/discard changes

Livesections in action

Bricscad V12 for Linux is out!

2012-02-20T16:10:00.001+02:00

Today Bricsys has released the final V12 version of Bricscad for Linux.
This release includes many fixes and new features such as direct modelling, 2D and 3D parametric constraints, realistic rendering via RedSDK and more ( a full changelog is available here).
Bricscad V12 for Linux is a powerful and affordable application that can reduce the cost of a CAD workstation significantly . Combined with the upcoming Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, which will come with a 5-years support period, it can be a reliable long time solution for anyone, not only current Linux users.
Bricscad V12 for Linux comes in 3 versions:

Classic (2D only with LISP)
Pro (plus 3D, direct modelling, realistic rendering, BRX)
Platinum (plus 3D constraints and design intent capturing)

As usual 30-days trial version is available after registration

The installation on Ubuntu 11.10 32bit was fast and trouble-free. However the new features and especially the real-time realistic rendering need more powerful hardware (especially GPU). Also consider that you have to tweak some settings in order to get better performance ( I had to change the default settings of quad cursor to make it work better in my machine).

Startup Wizard

3d modelling space

Push/Pull in action

A more detailed view and any possible tweaks/fixes will be available soon.

Trazar City Tools for Bricscad Linux: A very good start

2012-02-09T18:39:00.000+02:00

Bricscad for Linux is a powerful and fast application. While the V12 is in the final stage of development with a lot of cool new features including direct modelling and more, the current stable V11 is a very good choice for a Linux CAD workstation.
One of the advantages of Bricscad is that you can extend its functionality via APIs.
Trazar City Tools from Bethel Ingeniería is the first and currently the only available application that is compatible with Bricscad for Linux.
It is a Lisp application so you can also use it with the cheap, 2D only, Classic version of Bricscad. Of course it is compatible with the Pro version too.
This application contains a full set of tools and libraries for effective 2D design of pipes, ducts, fire protection systems, plumbing, HVAC, and more.
Trazar City Tools can be downloaded from here for testing. A full license costs about 895$ or 995$ if you buy both Trazar City Tools and Bricscad Classic.

Trazar Building Library window

Trazar Suite window

All the extra toolbars of Trazar City Tools

So you can have a 2D DWG -compatible, Linux CAD workstation with extra MEP functionality with about 400-500$ lower cost than a Windows-based workstation with AutoCAD LT which cannot run external applications. A very interesting choice!!!

A silent DraftSight update: Some important fixes and a stupid new bug

2012-02-01T13:58:00.000+02:00

Today I mentioned that the DraftSight's deb and rpm files have been updated since January's 17 but there was no information about that. No mail notification, not even a post on DraftSight's community. However this new V1R1.4 version of DraftSight is important for linux users.

First of all, it fixes the problem of the misnamed dependency on Ubuntu 11.10. You don't need anymore libxcb-render-util0 from Natty.

It has working STL export, a very important feature for linux users. Now you can convert 3d dwg files in a format that can be used with Blender and other Linux applications.

The bad news:

The problem with Ubuntu Software Center remains: You still need to install DraftSight with gdebi.

A very stupid new bug appears and I cannot understand why. DraftSight re-named the startup script from DraftSight to draftsight. Why was this so important? Because the menu entry continues to point to /opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/bin/DraftSight instead of the correct new path /opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/bin/draftsight. So you cannot launch DraftSight from your menu unless you edit the menu with alacarte, the menu editor of GNOME or a similar utility in other Desktop Environments.

Launching alacarte from Unity

Editing the DraftSight's menu entry with alacatre

DraftSight on CentOS 6.2 (32bit)

2012-01-05T19:37:00.001+02:00

I was very curious if DraftSight can work with RHEL clones like CentOS or Scientific Linux. So I decided to test the installation of DraftSight on CentOS 6.2.

I am not familiar with rpm-based distros and as Ubuntu user I had difficulties to make DraftSight to work with CentOS. Like the latest OpenSUSE, CentOS requires additional repositories to be enabled in order to install DraftSight. Unfortunately I am not sure if all the repositories I used were necessary and the use of all these 3d party repositories caused problems in update manager because they contain same packages.

My workaround

I added the repositories RPMforge and RPM Fusion in my system. These are repositories with some commonly used extra content. However with these repositories enabled the DraftSight installation failed because a dependency wasn't satisfied. So I manually installed this package and after that the installation was successful.

I believe that is is not the recommended workaround, even if it was successful, for two reasons:

I am not sure if RPMForge and RPM Fusion are necessary for the DraftSight's installation.
The library I installed manually is contained to another repository, ATrpms. This repository might be more useful because it contains also Nvidia's binary driver.

If you add all the above repositories (RPMforge, RPM Fusion and ATrpms) you will have problems with your update manager. ( The solution is probably here but I didn't test it).

DraftSight on CentOS

So my recommendation is to enable only the ATrpms repository. Probably all that you need is here. If you experience any issues (unsatisfied dependencies) try to enable the other repos as well. A quick and easy workaround if you experience problems with your update manager, is to disable the 3rd party repositories after the installation of DraftSight.

CentOS is probably the best choice for a zero-cost, long-living Linux CAD workstation.

CentOS and other RHEL clones are ideal for workstations because they are stable, mature fast, and with long maintenance cycle. However you can find distros that are much more easier to use and configure.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T23:59:00.000+02:00

Happy new year to all!!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T17:00:00.000+02:00

Merry Christmas to all.

New version for ARES CE

2011-12-22T20:16:00.000+02:00

A new version of ARES CE for Linux is available. New commands in solid drawing/editing , a new plugin manager, and Voice notes are some of the new features in this version (2011.8.1080). You can download and test this version for free from Graebert's website.

ARES CE

The new plugin manager.

If you want to buy ARES CE you might be interested on their Christmas offers.

This new version was installed without problems on Ubuntu 11.10 32bit.

Christmas offers from Linux CAD vendors

2011-12-17T20:26:00.000+02:00

Graebert and VariCAD have some special Christmas offers for their products. So if you plan to buy ARES CE or VariCAD this is the right moment. Varicad has a 20% discount until December 28, so you can buy VariCAD for 399€ (Normal price 499€) or VariCAD with one year upgrade for 479€ (Normal price 599€).
Graebert's ARES CE now costs 395€ instead of 795€.

The true multiarch support

2011-12-17T20:25:00.000+02:00

Ubuntu 11.10 came with multiarch support, a feature that makes easier the installation of 32bit apps in a 64bit OS. However this feature isn't yet implemented correctly and the installation of 32bit apps in Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit is a nightmare.
Another distro with multiarch support is OpenSuse. OpenSuse provides excellent multiarch support. I have tested the installation of the first beta version of DraftSight on OpenSuse 11.4 64bit and it was installed without any issues.
However, after the release of OpenSuse 12.1 I was curious to test the current 3rd Beta of DraftSight with the new 64bit OpenSuse.
I installed OpenSuse 12.1 64bit GNOME version via VirtualBox. I downloaded DraftSight.rpm and tried to install it. With the first attempt I got an error. A dependency couldn't be found. That happened because DraftSight depends on a library that isn't included in the official OpenSuse repositories. However, the solution is extremely simple. You just have to enable the Packman repository. This repository ( it's similar to the Medibuntu repository) contains extra software that isn't included for licensing reasons. After that step DraftSight was installed automatically, without problems, simply by double clicking on the DraftSight.rpm package from your file manager.

The warning message for the unsatisfied dependency.

After enabling the Packman repository, everything is fine.

New release for TeighaViewer

2011-12-15T22:49:00.002+02:00

A new version (3.5.1) of TeighaViewer is available for download from here. This version comes with various improvements and a new properties pallete. It continues having printing and font issues but it's an excellent tool for viewing dwg, dxf and dgn files on Linux. This version was installed without any problems on Ubuntu 11.10 32bit.

An unexpected solution for 3D dwg files

2011-12-12T17:18:00.001+02:00

One of the biggest problems in computing is data sharing, meaning how to share your data between different programs. Especially if you work with CAD you need to share your geometry with raster image processors (GIMP,Krita etc.), vector graphics applications (Inkscape,Karbon, etc), 3D graphics programs (Blender,Wings 3D etc) or FEA software (Salome,Elmer,Gmsh, etc). Proprietary formats make data sharing extremely hard.

When you try to export your geometry from a dwg-based CAD application for 2D you have many reliable options: PDF, SVG, DXF JPG and PNG are some of them.
But what happens if you want to export 3D geometry? You probably need to export your data as a STEP, IGES, 3DS, Collada (.dae) or STL file. These formats are not supported from Linux dwg-based CAD applications. VariCAD and VariCAD viewer can export STEP, IGES and STL files but neither of them can read 3D DWG files.
DraftSight has an export option for STL files but it doesn't work. ARES CE has also a STL export option but ARES CE isn't free of charge and its trial version either is for 30-days time period or has the save,export and printing options disabled.
So how you can make your 3D geometry usable for Blender or Salome?
In order to achieve that you can use the unregistered version of ARES CE. Yes, I know that the STL export option is supposed to be disabled, but ARES CE ( I used the current 2011.6.1044 build) has not disabled this one (All the other export options are disabled). If you try to access the export command from the menu you get the message that you are using the unregistered version and this command is disabled.

Trying to access the export command from menu. The warning message appears.

But if you type exportstl in the command line it works!! You will be prompted to select your 3D geometry and to choose if you want a binary or ASCII STL file and after that the dialog box appears and let you save your STL file.

The exportstl command through the commandline works!

The exported STL file in Blender.

UPDATE (22/12/2011): The command exportstl has been disabled in the new version 2011.8.1080 of ARES CE in demo mode. So this solution will not work anymore.

Some tweaks for DraftSight on Ubuntu 11.10

2011-12-09T21:09:00.001+02:00

Despite its BETA status DraftSight for Linux is enough stable and mature for productivity work. In this post I will show you some tweaks in order to make your life easier.

Get back your icons in DraftSight's menus :

If you don't see any icons in your DraftSight menus that's because you use GNOME and the default settings of your desktop hide the icons in menus. This is not a DraftSight's bug. In order to get back the icons in your DS menus you have 2 options that do exactly the same thing:

1. Install gconf-editor, because it isn't installed by default on Ubuntu 11.10, open it and navigate to /desktop/gnome/interface and then change the value of the variable menus_have_icons from false to true.

2. Open a terminal (simply by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T) and execute the command:

gconftool-2 -t boolean -s /desktop/gnome/interface/menus_have_icons true

This command does the same thing with the first option without the need of installing gconf-editor.

DraftSight with no icons in menus.

DraftSight after making the icons in menus visible.

Solve issues related to your desktop theme :

DraftSight is a Qt-based application. DraftSight on Ubuntu 11.10 tries to apply by default your GTK theme, and you may have problems if you use a custom GTK theme and not the default Ambiance or Radiance themes. Changing your GTK theme into one of these 2 themes is the simpliest solution but there are 2 other ways to solve theme-related issues without changing the appearance of your whole desktop.

1. Install the package qt4-qtconfig ( you can use Ubuntu Software Center, Synaptic or terminal for that). After the installation you can find this little application as Qt Settings. Open it and change the option GUI style into Plastique. Close this application (you will be prompted to save the changes, choose yes) and after that DraftSight will be opened by using the plastique theme by default.

Qt 4 Settings

2. The above option affects the appearance of all your Qt apps. If you don't want this to happen you can use a different method that applies the plastique theme only for DraftSight. What you have to do?

Open a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/bin/DraftSight

this command will open DraftSight's startup script with root privileges. Be careful with the changes and don't make any other changes on this file except the one you need in order to make DraftSight use by default the plastique theme. So just add -style plastique option in line 32 of this file and save it.

DraftSight's startup script in gedit. The changes you have to do are highlighted.

DraftSight with the plastique theme applied.

Import/Export .SAT files

DraftSight is a 2D application but it can read/write 3d files. A hidden feature that you may find useful is the ability to import/export 3D .SAT files. These commands have no menu entries in DraftSight but are accessible through the command line. Simply type importsat to get the "open sat file" dialog box and exportsat to get the "save as sat" dialog box (you have to choose a 3d entity from model space first ).

Import SAT file dialog box.

Export SAT file dialog box.

VariCAD 2012-1.03 for Linux

2011-12-07T18:41:00.000+02:00

VariCAD is a 2D/3D CAD application, that has been shipping Linux versions for over a decade. It is a powerful application, quite different than other CAD programs, with a lot of interesting features.
VariCAD is an application for mechanical design. As mentioned above it has many differences than other CAD packages especially in 2D. However it has a lot of features and tools in order to create 2D and 3D drawings easily.
With VariCAD you can:
- Draw 2D and 3D objects.
- Create 2D drawings from 3D objects and vice versa.
- Do some calculations for mechanical parts.
- Import/Export drawings in various file formats.
- Create Bills of Materials.
- Create assemblies.
- Use the built-in libraries of mechanical parts like screws, bearings etc.

I have tested the latest version of VariCAD 2012-1.03 on my Ubuntu 11.10 32bit. I had also tried to test previous versions of VariCAD a few months ago but I never completed the tests due to the lack of free time and the differences between VariCAD and other CAD applications. VariCAD needs you to spend some time in order to understand its power.

Installation/Desktop Integration
VariCAD has been installed in the latest Ubuntu without issues. VariCAD is a Qt application and it uses the plastique theme. You can easily make VariCAD use your GTK theme through the system settings menu but I experienced some problems with the Ambiance theme. So I recommend the use of the default plastique theme.

VariCAD with the GTK theme applied.

Import/Export capabilities.
VariCAD has some usefull import/export capabilities. You can import/export STEP files and you can also export IGES and STL files. These file formats are very useful for sharing 3D drawings with other CAD applications, rendering and multiphysics software. VariCAD can also import/export DWG/DXF files but only in 2D.

A STEP file exported from FreeCAD and imported to VariCAD.

Performance/Workflow
The performance of VariCAD is really great. It loads documents fast, it makes calculations and executes commands fast, its graphics are fast even with large models.
But it really needs a new modern GUI. All these toolbars, some of them placed in wrong positions, make the transition to VariCAD hard. Of course you can change the position of the toolbars simply by dragging and dropping them into a new position and the use of the large icons set make things better.
However a new, cleaner and modern GUI is still missing.

VariCAD with one of the included sample files opened. The file was loaded instantly.

VariCAD's 2D workspace.

Features
All that you need for complex mechanical design is here. VariCAD is a full-featured product that allows you to create complex 2D an 3D drawings. It contains also tools for various mechanical part calculations and built-in libraries for a lot of mechanical parts. Tools for creation of BOMs and interference checking are also available such as tools for easy creation of 2D drawings from 3D objects and vice versa.

The "Mechanical Part Calculations" menu.

Documentation
VariCAD includes detailed documentation easily accessible from the Help menu with various tutorials.

VariCAD's documentation.

Summary
VariCAD is a powerful application with excellent Linux support for both 32bit and 64bit. It comes as a complete package of tools for easy 2D/3D mechanical design. It has great performance, it can import/export in various useful formats and has a very affordable price. If it had a better GUI, 3D DWG support and it was customizable through an API it would be perfect. Also notice that you have to spend some time in order to understand how it works. Especially if you come from an AutoCAD- like program you will find VariCAD's 2D complicate.

Playing with FreeCAD: Trapezoids and Ribs

2011-12-03T12:51:00.000+02:00

FreeCAD is an application whose development I have been watching closely since I first learned about it. What I like on FreeCAD?

It is Free and Open Source Software.
It's a feature-based parametric solid modeler. I actually believe that this kind of modeling is the best way to create complex 3D entities.
FreeCAD has its own workflow without trying to mimic the way that other similar applications work.

FreeCAD is under active development ~~and currently is on Alpha stage~~(FreeCAD's development team decided recently to remove the "Alpha" status from FreeCAD).
But despite the missing features it can create complex geometry thanks to its Sketcher which is a very good tool.
For example similar proprietary applications have automatic tools for the creation of trapezoids (Loft command) or ribs. These entities are very common on mechanical design. FreeCAD doesn't have these tools yet but it is very easy to create trapezoids and ribs in FreeCAD with the help of Sketcher. I have actually found 2 ways to do that.

The first way is to create 2D trabezoid and rib shapes with Sketcher an then use the Pad tool to make them 3D. By this way you may find helpful the creation of custom planes. It's very easy to create custom planes in FreeCAD with the primitives dialog box under the Part module.

A 2D trapezoid shape created with Sketcher

A 2d rib created with Sketcher on a custom plane

The final 3D shape. The Pad tool was used to create 3D geometry from the 2D sketches

The other way is the combination of 2D sketches and the Pocket tool. All you have to do is to cut properly 3D rectangles in order to create trapezoids and ribs.

Create 2 triangles with Sketcher on a 3D rectangular shape.

After using the Pocket tool the result will be a trapezoid.

In order to create a rib, just draw a triangle on a 3D rectangular shape and use the Pocket tool.

The final result.

FreeCAD has all the necessary tools that you need to place correctly the 2D sketches on the 3D entities.

Is this how Bricscad's rendering mode will look like on Linux?

2011-11-21T17:13:00.001+02:00

Bricscad V12 for Linux will have a lot of new cool features. One of them is a realistic rendering mode for 3d modeling. This feature isn't implemented yet but thanks to a... bug we can have a possible preview about how this feature will look like.

Bricscad's realistic rendering mode or not?

QCAD 3 RC1 released!

2011-11-01T23:39:00.001+02:00

QCAD 3 RC 1 released for downloading and testing. This version has many bug fixes and improvements and it's one step before the final release. QCAD 3 tries to combine dwg compatibility without changing the familiar QCAD interface. You can download it from here and you can read more about this version here.

QCAD 3 RC1 on Debian Wheezy 64bit

DraftSight and Ubuntu 11.10 64bit

2011-10-23T17:37:00.000+03:00

Ubuntu 11.10 has multiarch support. This is a feature that makes the installation of 32bit applications on a 64bit OS easier. Well that doesn't work with DraftSight. The package failed to be installed correctly in every possible workaround I tried. DraftSight installed and worked after some tricks but it was marked as damaged so it had to be removed. (You are unable to update your system or install new programs if you have damaged packages).

So the only way to install and run DS on a 64bit Ubuntu 11.10 is to completely ignore dpkg.
How to do that? Here are the necessary steps.

Install the necessary dependencies of DraftSight: sudo apt-get install libdirectfb-extra sendmail
Install this library from Natty.
Extract the contents of DraftSight.deb. For your ease put Draftsight.deb file inside your home folder.Then right click on the DraftSight.deb and select "Extract here"
Open nautilus as root ( Press Alt+F2, type gksu nautilus, press Enter, insert you password and press Enter again)
Copy the contents of ~/DraftSight/var and ~/DraftSight/opt into you system's /var and /opt folders
Open a terminal and type: cd ~/DraftSight/DEBIAN then type sudo ./preinst and sudo ./postinst

Now you are able to work with DraftSight on your 64bit Ubuntu without any dpkg problems.

I don't like workarounds like this but unfortunately it is the only way to install DraftSight on a 64bit Ubuntu 11.10 system.

Important Update: This workaround is for DraftSight V1R1.3

The newer V1R1.4 version doesn't need any more the library from Natty and probably sendmail. Also the path to DraftSight's startup script has been changed to /opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/bin/draftsight

DraftSight on Ubuntu 11.10

2011-10-13T21:20:00.001+03:00

After finishing a clean installation of Ubuntu 11.10 I experienced a problem on the installation of DraftSight but finally I solved it easily.
The problem was that a dependency of DS had been changed its name so that the installer returned an error.
So if you want DraftSight on Ubuntu 11.10 32bit you have to:

Download and install manually this package from Natty.
Install DraftSight with gdebi because Software Center fails.
Alternatively use the terminal: sudo dpkg -i DraftSight.deb. Before that you may have to install libdirectfb-extra and sendmail manually.

Enjoy DraftSight on the new Ubuntu!!!

Important update: This workaround is for DraftSight V1R1.3
The newer V1R1.4 fixed the problem with the misnamed library so you don't have to install any extra packages from older Ubuntu releases.
V1R1.4 installs correctly on an Ubuntu 11.10 32bit system with gdebi or dpkg.

A very quick view on Bricscad for Linux V12 beta

2011-10-05T21:24:00.001+03:00

Today Bricsys announced some very impressive new features for Bricscad V12 and I was really very curious about these changes. So I found and downloaded the beta version of Bricscad V12 for Linux.
The changes are really impressive: parametric constraints for both 3D and 2D, direct modelling capabilities and some performance speed-up. The new features are part of a new version, Bricscad Platinum.
The new version installs without problems on Ubuntu 11.04 32bit. Due to the decision of Canonical to make the 64bit version of Ubuntu with multiarch support probably you wouldn't have any issues if you try to install it on Ubuntu 11.10 both 32bit and 64bit. But you have to wait for about a week for the release of the new version of Ubuntu.
I experienced some problems, but to be fair with Bricscad, these issues are probably related to the version of Compiz that comes with Ubuntu 11.04. Also consider that this is a beta release.

I couldn't found the 3D parametric objects called X-Solids etc. I don't know if there are plans to port them into the Linux Platinum version or they just dropped them out from V12.
Finally I want to mention that I am very glad to see continuous development and improvements into the Linux version of Bricscad. This means that Bricsys wants to improve further this product and it will probably be well supported in the future.

You can find this V12 beta version here

Gear design with Linux

2011-10-01T20:11:00.002+03:00

Gear design is painful. The design of the involute curve is a demanding process. However there are some utilities that can make this easier.
GGGears: GGGears is a small application that can create 2D and 3D gears and do some numerical computations. It creates gears of good quality but there is currently no easy way to export the geometry into a CAD program for further editing.

Blender script: This script can create gears with Blender. It is available only for the older 2.4.x release of Blender. The good news is that this Blender series can export dxf files that can be opened with ARES and Bricscad. The bad news is that the quality of the generated gears isn't good enough and the geometry is a 3d mesh not a solid entity.

FreeCAD macro: This is a macro that can generate 3D gears with FreeCAD. Easy to use, creates gears of better quality than the Blender script does, but is slow. This macro can generate the gear as a solid or as a mesh.

Geargen 1.10: Yes I know that this is an old shareware DOS program. But it runs perfect via DOSBox and generates gears that can be saved as dxf files that work with LibreCAD, ARES, Bricscad DraftSight, QCAD,and VariCAD so it is worth to be mentioned in this post.

A second beta for QCAD 3 just arrived

2011-09-19T11:34:00.001+03:00

Ribbonsoft announced the availability of a second beta version of QCAD 3. This version comes with many bug fixes and some new features. You can download QCAD 3 beta 2 from here.
This release changed my plans of a detailed view on QCAD 3, a post that was almost ready, but now I have to test for a while the new beta 2 and re-write the post after that, in order to include the latest changes.

Adding custom hatches on ARES CE, Bricscad and DraftSight

2011-09-03T18:02:00.000+03:00

Adding a custom hatch on ARES CE, Bricscad and DraftSight is quite different than on AutoCAD. You cannot link a folder that contains the custom hatches in program's settings. However adding one or more custom hatches isn't difficult.

All these programs have one .pat file that contains all hatches. So you have to edit this file in order to add any custom hatches.

The path for the file is:

/home/username/Bricsys/Bricscad/V11/en_US/Support/default.pat for Bricscad V11

/home/username/.config/DraftSight/1.2.163/Support/Sample.pat for the current version of DraftSight

/home/username/.config/ARES Commander Edition/1.2.175/Support/Sample.pat for the current version of ARES CE

So you only have to copy the contents of your desired .pat file at the end of the above files to use your custom hatch with these programs.

This might be easy for a few hatches but what happens if you want to add a lot of hatches?
There is an easy way to do that with some bash power.

Move your .pat files in one folder
Open a terminal in this folder
type cat *.pat > allhatches.txt
Test the output file allhatches.txt for formatting errors. An easy way is to open this file with your favorite text editor and search for the character *. This character indicates the start of every hatch pattern. Check if there are formatting errors (undefined characters, unnecessary empty lines, bad formatting etc) and correct them. You must have some basic knowledge about how a .pat file must look like. Save the corrected file.
Copy the contents of the file allhatches.txt at the end of the above mentioned files in order to use them with your favorite program.

Notice that if you add a lot of hatches, the "select hatch pattern" dialog box of your program may have performance issues.

The "select hatch pattern" dialog box in Bricscad after adding a lot of hatches

How to work with pdf files with ARES CE,Bricscad,DraftSight and Librecad

2011-08-29T22:18:00.000+03:00

Importing PDF files is a missing feature from all Linux CAD packages. However there are some very interesting and simple workarounds to bypass this problem.

Converting PDF to PNG or JPEG

This is very easy with GIMP. And is the only way you can work with scanned pdf drawings. Just open the pdf file with GIMP and save the file as .png or jpg. Needs some attention only when you choose the image quality. Very low quality images may not be clear when you zoom and very high quality images may slow down your CAD program (especially Bricscad which has poor raster performance).

The PDF file

The save as png dialog box in GIMP

The png file imported to DraftSight

2. Converting PDF to DXF
If your pdf file has been exported from a CAD program the best way to work with it is to convert it to dxf.
Inkscape has a save as dxf option but I prefer to use the command line tool pstoedit to make the conversion.

Inkscape's save as dxf dialog box

Inkskcape uses the same tool so if you run the command line tool without parameters you will have the same result. But the command line tool is preferable because you can use parameters to change the result.
You can run the command pstoedit -help to view a complete list of options and available parameters of this little program.

Converting pdf to dxf with pstoedit step-by-step guide

Open a terminal in the directory that contains the file you want to convert. You can use nautilus-open-terminal or use the cd command to do that.
Run the command pstoedit -f dxf filename.pdf filename.dxf to make the conversion. Where filename is the name of the pdf that you want to convert. Of course you can use a different name for the dxf file but I prefer to use the same.
Alternatively you can run pstoedit -f dxf_s filename.pdf. This will make a dxf file that contains splines and lines instead of polylines. In some drawings this command will give better results.

The output dxf file opened with Bricscad

Problems, troubleshooting and a very strange bug.

Converting a pdf file to dxf gives you the opportunity to change drawing's entities but the conversion isn't always the best way to work. If it is possible to have access to the original CAD file is much more preferable. Some issues are:

All the entities (even arcs,circles,hatches,dimensions and dimension texts) are polylines or splines and lines (See the screenshot above).
The converted file doesn't contain any layers. There is a parameter on pstoedit to match colors with layers but didn't worked for me. However if you work on DraftSight/ARES CE you can use the smart select tool to match easily entities with the same color to layers.
The pdf file probably is scaled. So you have to re-scale the whole drawing to get it in the original size.
If your pdf file contains a very complex drawing, the output dxf file may be too big.
At last I want to mention a very strange bug. If you use the first command and then open the dxf with all the programs that use ODA's libraries (ARES CE,Bricscad,DraftSight even TeighaViewer) all the polylines are duplicated. But if you open it with Librecad the file is OK. If you save the file from Librecad without any changes all the above programs open the file correctly. Notice that when you open Librecad's files with ARES CE/DraftSight snap is enabled, so use F9 to disable it and with Bricscad the grid is enabled so you have to disable it. Notice also that you have to use the latest version of Librecad and not the version which is in the Ubuntu's 11.04 repositories because that version doesn't open the dxf files properly.

The strange bug as shown in TeighaViewer

With pstoedit you can also convert .ps and .svg files to .dxf

QCAD 3 Beta is available for public download

2011-08-25T11:27:00.000+03:00

A new beta version of QCAD 3 is available for public downloading and testing. Get this new version from here.
QCAD 3 has a new polished look, dwg support, a new properties editor, and various new tools and improvements.

Drawing settings dialog

The new splash screen

The new GUI

The tar.gz version is preferable for testing, unless you want to test the installer. It's also necessary to read the notes before start the downloading process.

Feel free to submit bugs and feature requests here.

A little workaround for compiling FreeCAD dev on Ubuntu 11.04

2011-08-23T23:34:00.000+03:00

FreeCAD is an Open Source 3d Parametric Solid Modeler with major improvements during the last months. I had posted earlier this year a how-to guide for compiling the latest development version on Ubuntu. But now this process needs a workaround to make the Part design module to work properly.
The ./configure command didn't found libeigen3-dev. It seems that FreeCAD has a new dependency. This package is needed to make the Part design module work properly. If you continue and compile FreeCAD without this package the compilation and the installation is successful but the Part design module doesn't work. Unfortunately this package isn't available in the repositories of Ubuntu 11.04.
However the solution is very simple. Go here and download this library. Choose the right version for your system's architecture (32bit or 64bit). Then install it and run the necessary commands to built and install FreeCAD ( ./autogen.sh , ./configure , make , make install) and you will get a full working FreeCAD version.

Two quick tips for the new DraftSight version

2011-08-08T18:04:00.000+03:00

After installing the latest DraftSight I did some quick changes that might be helpful.

Change the cursor to crosshair

Go to Tools--Options--System Options--Graphics Area and select the option Display cursor as crosshair

Then click OK and you're ready.

2. Adding some existing ctb files to DraftSight.

If you have some existing ctb files that you like to use with DraftSight there is an easy way to do that. Just copy your ctb files into the /home/username/.config/DraftSight/1.2.163/Print Styles directory.

The folder .config is hidden so if you want to see it you have to press Ctrl+H in Nautilus/Thunar or Alt+. in Dolphin. After that you can choose your preferred ctb via the Additional Options in the Printing dialog box of DraftSight.

DraftSight and 64bit Linux

2011-08-08T18:02:00.000+03:00

I have decided to write this little comment because of the great interest of people to run the current versions of DraftSight, which are 32bit only, in 64bit Linux installations. First if you want to run DraftSight in a Linux box 32bit OS is preferable for some reasons, but if you continue wanting a 64bit OS you have to keep in mind some difficulties:

Do not use unsupported distros, different packaging may cause problems that are more difficult to solve
Linux has various package manages which may have different behavior. For example dpkg doesn't add automatically 32-bit dependencies but yast does
Ubuntu 11.04 has a bug that breaks the installation of 32bit packages in a 64bit system. There are various workarounds but I think that, update your dpkg package via apt-pinning, is the best.
A quick tip is to start DraftSight for first time via terminal, so you can see any error messages. You can start DraftSight with the command

/opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/bin/DraftSight

Little things that make linux powerful and effective

2011-08-08T17:55:00.000+03:00

Linux is famous about its fancy Window managers. Compiz, Kwin and e17 are some of them with different capabilities each one. But these fancy things are only for fun??
Many people claim that nobody cares for these WM capabilities, but I realized how useful are some of them when working with CAD. For example KWin's feature that groups windows into tabs is the greatest feature if you have to work with multiple windows of diferrent programs. For example many times you have to work with a CAD programm, a vector or raster image processor, a pdf viewer, a browser and other apps. Switching between them from the taskbar is realy painfull and slow. Grouping these different windows into one gives you the opportunity to switch between them using tabs.

LibreCAD,Inkscape,Okular and Iceweasel, all under the same window

Back to reality

2011-07-31T22:35:00.000+03:00

After some days without PC and Internet, but with a lot of sun and sea, I have returned home. Well I lost some interesting news like the new DraftSight release, but my batteries are fully charged. Time for changes on this blog I think... I have some ideas in mind but nothing is certain yet. I will post more in a few weeks, probably before autumn.

Update for TeighaViewer available

2011-07-09T22:40:00.000+03:00

A new version 3.05.0 of TeighaViewer, a free CAD files viewer from ODA, is available for download.
This version has some fixes but continues to be buggy.
Despite the bugs, it deserves some space in your HDD, only for the great dwg/dxf support and the capabilities of saving in plenty versions of these formats.

Both 32bit .deb and .rpm files are available here

New FreeCAD module

2011-07-09T22:38:00.000+03:00

A new module named "Ship" is available for FreeCAD. It aims to be a user-friendly module that will add ship modelling functionality on FreeCAD. I downloaded it and installed it after some tricks (I had to define the correct installation path in the makefile) into my FreeCAD dev installation but I didn't make it work
(Or I didn't understand how it works).

Enabling Global menu support for DraftSight on Ubuntu 11.04

2011-07-05T22:14:00.001+03:00

A few days ago reader Toni left me a comment asking if I know any way to enable global menu support for DraftSight on Ubuntu 11.04.
I am an Ubuntu user and I use Natty as one of my OSes ( My other OSes are Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Debian Wheezy ). I have never thought to enable global menu on DraftSight before. I use DraftSight and I find it great but I never missed this feature.

Finally enabling global menu support is quite easy.
My idea for linking system's libraries worked like a charm.
But I think that there are some legal issues here. DraftSight is proprietary software and I don't know if this hack is acceptable. Similar workarounds are posted in official forums of proprietary apps (Googleearth) for fixing problems but DraftSight is different. Also you may consider that DS is designed for working with these specific versions of Qt libraries and wouldn't work properly with the newer system's libraries. One bug that I discovered is that the cursor remains always visible. For these reasons I don't want to give detailed instructions for this workaround.
The basic instructions are:

Backup all Qt libraries from the folder /opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/lib to a folder inside your home folder.
Replace all Qt-related libraries from /opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/lib with links to your system libraries from /usr/lib folder. Just remove the default libraries from /opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/lib and copy the links from /usr/lib folder folder (libQtxxx.so named archives) to the above folder and you are ready.

I played a while with this and then I reverted the changes.

Blast from the past

2011-06-25T00:21:00.000+03:00

When I was trying to cleanup the mess of my home folder a few days ago I discovered an archive named Cycas4p2.

This was an early pre-realease of CYCAS 4 back on March 2010. Since there are no more news about this release and the project seems discontinued or frozen, I really like the idea of posting some screenshots of this.
This pre-realease can only draw lines and boxes but can load sucessfully older cycas sample files.

DraftSight for Linux update will be available on July

2011-06-14T01:00:00.000+03:00

An update for the Linux version of DraftSight will be available on July.
DraftSight is an AutoCAD-like 2D CAD from Dassault.
The first Beta version of DraftSight Linux was released on March.
The updated version will continue being marked as "Beta".
The first beta version of DraftSight Linux works really good.
I hope that this update will fix some minor bugs but I don't expect radical improvements.
I also hope that the final version will be available soon.

GNOME 3 and DraftSight

2011-06-14T00:59:00.000+03:00

I was very curious if an existing proprietary CAD program integrates well with the new GNOME 3 environment. So I created a Fedora 15 LiveUSB stick and I installed DraftSight on it.

As you can see the new GTK+ 3 theme cannot be applied correctly on a Qt app like DraftSight. However the application runs great and works well with the new environment. The right click--> "Open with DraftSight" option works with Nautilus and the .dwg and .dxf files have icons with the DS logo.

Several different ways to do the same thing

2011-06-11T14:49:00.000+03:00

You may have noticed that,while using a CAD program, there are several ways to get to the same result. Also different programs use different techniques to get to the same result. What's the point of this post ? To prove that CAD is much more than a single program or only one drawing technique. Let's create a very simple 3D object, a pipe with 100mm height,outer diameter 20mm, inner diameter 15mm, by several different ways and programs.

1. Primitive solids/ FreeCAD
Create 2 cylinders, edit their data to height 100mm for both and diameter 20mm for the first and 15mm for the second cylinder. Then with the boolean operation "Cut" cut the second cylinder from the first one.

2. Sketch extrusion/ GraphiteOne
With the sketch tool create two circles with same center and then with the smart dimension tool set the diameters to 20mm (r 10mm) for the first circle and to 15mm (r 7.5mm) for the second. Then use the extrude boss/base tool to extrude the sketch and set the extrusion height to 100mm.

3. Automatic pipe tool/ VariCAD
Select the pipe tool from the toolbar, set height to 100mm, inner diameter to 15mm, outer diameter to 20mm and press enter.

4. Drawing Extrusion/ Bricscad Pro
Draw two circles with diameters 20mm and 15mm and the same center. Extrude both circles with a specified height of 100mm. Then from the "Modify" menu select Solid editing--> Subtract, select the big circle, click enter, then select the small circle, click enter and you are ready.

5. Drawing Revolve/ Bricscad Pro
Draw a rectangle with 10mm width and 100mm height ( Specify the first corner with the mouse and then type @ 10,100 in the command line). Select the same point as a first corner for a new rectangle with width 7.5mm and height 100mm (@ 7.5,100). Revolve both rectangles with the left side of both rectangles as a revolution axis and the revolution angle set to 360. Then from the "Modify" menu select Solid editing--> Subtract, select the big rectangle, click enter, then select the small rectangle and click enter again and you are ready.

As you can see when you work with CAD you have more than one way to do the same thing.

Note: Of course each of the used programs can work with more than one from the above techniques. (For example FreeCAD can revolve/extrude 2D drawings/sketches and Bricscad can create primitive solids). I believe that using different programs is better for this post than using several different techniques with only one program.

Pin FreeCAD development version to the Unity Launcher

2011-06-03T23:32:00.000+03:00

When you test the development version of FreeCAD on Ubuntu 11.04 you will probably need to pin it to the Unity Launcher. Unfortunately when you open FreeCAD from Nautilus, the right click--> Keep in Launcher option doesn't work.
The FreeCAD icon will be kept in Launcher,
but you cannot start the program by clicking it.
So how can you start FreeCAD from the Unity Launcher ?
Here is a simple workaround:

Right click on the Desktop and select "Create Launcher" option
Define the full path to FreeCAD (like /home/username/FreeCAD/bin/FreeCAD)
Select the FreeCAD's icon in case you don't like to see a question mark on the Unity Panel. ( the path is /home/username/FreeCAD/share/freecad.xpm)

4. Click OK and a Launcher will be created on your Desktop

5. Drag and Drop this Launcher in the Unity Launcher

6. Now you can start FreeCAD development version from the Unity Launcher

QCAD 3 TP1 available

2011-05-25T17:17:00.000+03:00

Ribbonsoft released a Technology Preview version of QCAD 3 Proffesional, available for download only for users that have bought QCAD 2 during 2010 and 2011.
QCAD 3 has many improvements, DWG support and a polished interface.
You can read more about this release here.

Debian 6 Squeeze

2011-05-16T16:38:00.001+03:00

Q: Can I use DraftSight or Bricscad V11 with Debian 6 "Squeeze" ?

A: Of course. Debian is an excellent distro and works well with these CAD packages. The screenshots below show DraftSight and Bricscad V11 running on Debian 6 "Squeeze" 32bit in a VirtualBox installation.

Bricscad V11 on Debian 6

DraftSight on Debian 6

Tip: If you want to use Debian 6 as a CAD workstation for professional use you will probably need a more modern web browser. You can try Chrome or ,better, install Iceweasel (Firefox) 4 by following these instructions.

Unity or not Unity

2011-05-11T20:26:00.006+03:00

Ubuntu's 11.04 new interface, Unity,
has received both bad and enthusiastic comments for its usability.
Is Unity useful for CAD or, at least, better than the classic GNOME Panel?
See the screenshots below.

Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with Classic GNOME

Well, as you can see Unity offers you more drawing space. I believe that this is enough for a CAD user to love Unity.

VariCAD Viewer for Linux

2011-05-11T20:26:00.004+03:00

VariCAD viewer is a freeware CAD files viewer from VariCAD. Supports various well known formats like STEP 3D, IGES 2D, DWG/DXF 2D and DWB 2D/3D ( this is the native VariCAD format).
VariCAD Viewer comes in both .deb and .rpm packages for easy installation on the most Linux distros

VariCAD viewer on Ubuntu 11.04

The latest version comes with some interesting performance improvements,
especially in .dwg support.

Now VariCAD Viewer can handle larger drawings faster,
with better pan and zoom performance.

You can download it free of charge after a simple registration from here

Tip: Zoom works with the mouse wheel and pan with Ctrl + right mouse button.

New VariCAD release

2011-04-28T22:38:00.000+03:00

Just a few days ago a new release (2011-1.04) of VariCAD came out. This version brings various improvements, better dwg support, improved 2D functionality and more. You can find more information about this release here.
VariCAD is a well-known program for Linux users because of its Linux support for over a decade. It has plenty of features and very cheap price (499€ / 599€ with 1-year upgrades). It's a very good and affordable choice for mechanical design. It's available for both 32bit and 64bit architectures. VariCAD also provides both .deb and .rpm packages.

LibreCAD adds .dwg support via LibreDWG

2011-04-27T11:25:00.001+03:00

".dwg" is a well-known, proprietary CAD file-format. Originally developed by Autodesk and commonly used, it's a headache for other CAD vendors and a big obstacle for the creation of a good Free and Open Source CAD application. CAD vendors have a very good solution called ODA, but the libraries which are provided by ODA are proprietary software so they cannot be used on a Free and Open Source project like LibreCAD.
There is a try for the development of a library that can handle .dwg files and being completely free software at the same time. This project is named LibreDWG and it's currently on alpha stage. At the moment only versions R13, R14 and 2000 are supported. This library is going to be used by LibreCAD. It's nothing special but it's very interesting and welcome.

LibreCAD's partlibrary workaround for Ubuntu 11.04 Natty

2011-04-23T15:24:00.002+03:00

After testing Ubuntu 11.04 with the new Unity Shell for some time, I realized that the old way to embed QCAD's partlibrary in LibreCAD via the creation of the .librecad folder inside your home folder doesn't work anymore.
I have found a better way to use partlibrary with LibreCAD which I expect that works in all distros and OSes.

First launch LibreCAD
Then go to menu Edit--Application Preferences
Choose the tab Paths
In the Part Libraries line write the full path to your partlibrary folder.
Press OK

Ready!!!!

TeighaViewer for Debian/Ubuntu 64 bit workaround

2011-04-18T17:22:00.013+03:00

TeighaViewer is a free CAD files viewer from ODA. It has a Linux version but it's only for 32 bit rpm based distros. Using alien you can easily install it on a 32 bit deb-based Linux system. However alien has a big disadvantage: cannot convert packages with different architecture than the system's one. So if you have a 64bit system with Debian/Ubuntu you cannot install TeighaViewer with alien. Is there any other way?? I found a quite simple workaround...
(I suppose that you already have downloaded the rpm package of Teighaviewer into your 64bit installation)
First step: Boot your system with a Live CD of any 32bit distro you like.
Here I'll show the Ubuntu way.

Second step: Install alien on the Live CD:

sudo apt-get install alien

Third step: open a terminal, type:

sudo alien -dc

and drag 'n' drop your TeighaViewer rpm package into the terminal.
Then press Enter. Your package will be converted to a deb next to your rpm package.

Fourth step: Reboot your machine into your 64bit installation

Fifth step: Install your converted deb package with

sudo dpgk -i --force-architecture full_name_of_your_converted_package.deb

Enjoy TeighaViewer on your 64bit system!!!

Update: ODA now provides a 32bit deb package of TeighaViewer. So you don't need this workaround any more. Simply use sudo dpkg -i --force architecture package_name to install the deb package on a 64bit Ubuntu system.

Why I will not use AutoCAD WS

2011-04-15T18:44:00.002+03:00

AutoCAD WS is a web application that allows you to create, edit and share dwg files. That sounds really good to you, doesn't it? Well I will never use this application and I have plenty of reasons.

Limited functionality

It doesn't have the functionality and the features of a CAD application. It's only for basic drawing and editing

Bad performance

This web app is really slow. Go to the last reason to see why...

Here you can read them.

It's flash based

This really crappy,vulnerable,unstable software with the terrible performance on Linux. I don't want to use it for drawing.

Conclusion: Install the free DraftSight and share your data, if you want it, with a service like Dropbox or Ubuntu One. Much more productive, efficient, reliable and faster.

Ubuntu Software Center's error on 11.04 Natty Narwhal with DraftSight

2011-04-11T18:03:00.001+03:00

Starting with 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, Ubuntu uses by default Ubuntu Software Center for the installation of standalone deb packages instead of the traditional gdebi application.
This causes an error when attempting to install the DraftSight package. Ubuntu Software Center complains about "bad package's quality" by preventing DraftSight's installation.

I installed DraftSight on Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal the first day it was released. However I didn't notice this problem because I prefer to use gdebi for the installation of standalone .debs. After a month of testing, DraftSight seems to work well with Ubuntu 11.04 and nVIDIA binary driver. So If you want to skip this error message just install gdebi and use it for the installation of standalone .debs
Right click on your deb package and select "Open with GDebi" option

Or you can use command line:
sudo dpkg -i DraftSight.deb
This workaround is for 32bit Ubuntu 11.04

*Do not forget that for 64bit systems your only option is the command line:
sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture DraftSight.deb
after the installation of any possible missing dependencies. Typically DraftSight needs 2 extra packages:
libdirectfb-extra and libxcb-render-util0

Forcing 32bit packages on 64bit Debian/Ubuntu/Mint

2011-04-06T18:15:00.002+03:00

A very common problem for someone who plays with CAD on Linux is the mismatch between the package's and the system's architecture.
My suggestion is to use 32bit OS with ARES/Bricscad/DraftSight
but this is not always possible.
Some reasons are:

You have already installed a 64bit OS and you don't want to perform a new clean install of 32bit OS
You have already bought a commercial application that is 64bit only like Abaqus, NX, Maya.
Your common tasks include stuff that perform much better on 64bit architecture, like rendering, and you don't like to loose this benefit.

So let's take a look how to fix this simple problem:
I want to mention that Bricscad is marked as architecture independent package so it could be installed via gdebi/software center like any package that has common architecture with your system. However it's recommended to take a look on how dependencies work because different packaging within different versions may cause problems.

1. Working directory

First you have to understand how terminal works and especially the working directory. For a successful installation of a package you need to define the full path to the package or the directory that contains the package to be your working directory in terminal.You can change working directories with the command cd. There are some tweaks like the package nautilus-open-terminal which allows you to open a directory in terminal directly from Nautilus, (XFCE and KDE file managers have this option by default), drag 'n' drop the package into the terminal (so the full path to the package is defined). I prefer a different way.

Just move your .deb package into your home folder !! Now the default working directory of the terminal and the directory that contains the package are the same. You don't have to use cd or other tweaks.

2. Super user

In order to install a package on a Linux system you need administrative privileges. When working with terminal this means using sudo before the command (Mint/Ubuntu) or changing the user to root with su (Debian). Tip: when typing your password in terminal you will not see anything. Don't worry, this happens for security reasons.

3. Dependencies

Package dependencies are installed automatically when your package and your system have the same architecture but when you want to "--force" packages this doesn't happen. A very useful command is

dpkg-deb -I package_name (where package_name the full name of your deb package. Tip: just type the first 2-3 letters and press tab, the full name appears automatically) which gives you a full description of the package that includs the dependencies.
You will have to install manually any missing dependencies.

4. Installing the package
Make the system to skip the architecture check with the command
sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture package_name

Troubleshooting:

Missing dependency: your system informs you that a needed package is missing:

Install it with sudo apt-get install missing_package (where missing_package the name of your missing package) or via synaptic/software center.
Dependency that cannot be found: The sudo apt-get install missing_package returns an error that your demanding package does not exist. This will be caused by different reasons. 1) the CAD vendor marked a dependency with wrong name, the package exists on your distro's repositories but with a different name : for example libc6-i386 and libc6-i686 is the same package with two different names. This bug affected an older version of ARES CE. If you are in this case simply make your system to ignore this dependency with adding the "--ingnore-depends=missing_package" but make sure that the correct-named needed package is already installed.
2) Your distro updated the packages and the dependency doesn't exist any more on the repositories. This is going to happen when you try to install your CAD packages in a newer OS. Currently this doesn't affect CAD packages like ARES/Bricscad/DraftSight that are new and fit to current distros. But you cannot be sure that the CAD package which you bought in early 2011 will fit in a distro of 2015. And probably you don't want to spend extra money to update your CAD software. This case has 2 solutions: a) Find, download and install the older package manually. You can use packages.debian.org or packages.ubuntu.com as sources. b) create a symlink that points from the newer to the older version of the missing library (for more experienced users, "ln -s" command).

Bricscad V11 Pro special offers

2011-04-06T17:13:00.001+03:00

The new Bricscad V11 Pro for Linux has some special offers until 30/04/2011.
You can buy a single license for 315€/395$ instead of 450€/505$
Also consider the all-in version which includes:
1-year upgrades, 1- year technical support via e-mail and an e-book*
with a discounted price of 450€/555$ instead of 560€/665$
There are also special offers for multiple licenses.
Visit the Bricsys e-store for more information

*Customizing Bricscad by Ralph Grabowski

Bricscad PRO released for Linux

2011-04-05T18:24:00.002+03:00

Today Bricsys has released the PRO version of Bricscad Linux. The big differences with the Classic version are the support for the BRX API and the full ACIS modelling. Interesting features, but for being really useful, we must see some of the 3rd party applications being ported to Linux

My (very first) comment for this release: Bricscad PRO is a big step forward, but Bricsys must become serious with some things that give to Bricscad Linux the feeling of an unfinished, nonprofessional project. For example if you try to add a toolbar in the new PRO version the result is a complete disaster. It opens a different toolbar than the one you have chosen.... It's a pity for a product that has been improved a lot in other stuff , having bugs like that.

(Almost an) Application Review: Graphite One 3D CAD

2011-04-02T17:53:00.000+03:00

GraphiteOne is a 3D Parametric Solid Modeler. It uses the Parasolid kernel which is used also in various well known similar packages such as NX or Solidworks.
GraphiteOne provides packages for various Linux distros: Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, OpenSUSE, CentOS.

A full list is available here.

30-days trial versions are available with no registration.

Well, after launching the program for first time, you can understand that the try is incomplete. Old-fashioned GUI (it wouldn't be a problem if it had acceptable responsiveness), bad performance, bugs and some crashes. After some search in the GraphiteOne's website I discovered that GraphiteOne needs some older packages like gcc3.3 and libstdc++5. Once again it wouldn't be a problem if: 1) the installer informed you about that. 2) they didn't write in their website about Ubuntu 10.04 support when GraphiteOne needs packages that are not included in this version.

splash screen

a simple sketch with dimensions

extruding the previous sketch

These mistakes are unforgivable especially for a CAD application that isn't cheap (1600€). How easy is to trust for your productivity software a company that cannot inform you well for the system requirements of their program?
I had been testing for many days GraphiteOne on Ubuntu 11.04 32bit, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS 64 bit and OpenSUSE 11.4 64bit.
In all distros I experienced big problems, bugs and crashes. I tried several configurations like installing or not the "missing" older libraries, using different versions, (for example on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS I installed and tried both versions marked as 10.04 and 9.10) and the result was the same: Problems, bugs, crashes.

On OpenSUSE 11.4

On Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Under these circumstances I am not able to make a complete review. The program, if it was working correctly, would be a quite interesting 3D CAD with all basics included, limited functionality in comparison with other well known programs but much cheaper and with good interoperability with other commercial 3D CAD. But at the moment is just a waste of time.

LibreCAD released for the Cloud !!!!

2011-04-01T07:00:00.040+03:00

LibreCAD is a 2D Open Source CAD that today made the big step. Just a few minutes ago released a version that runs on the Cloud, so it became the first CAD ever that has an official Cloud version.

Happy April Fools' Day !!!

The screenshots are real and show really LibreCAD running on the cloud. However this is a new feature of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 that allows you to test an application before installing it. The application runs on the cloud but only for testing. You can test application's functionality and features but you cannot open files or save your work.

Application Review: Bricscad V11 Classic Linux (Part II)

2011-03-31T15:56:00.000+03:00

Continue from Part I

Performance: The big advantage of Bricscad. Currently the best of the available dwg-based AutoCAD-like applications for Linux. Very effective with large drawings.

Workflow: Easy and simple, especially for AutoCAD users.

Features: All the things that you need for an effective 2D design. I didn't find any useful feature missing from Bricscad. Also the support for APIs like LISP and DRX makes Bricscad V11 Classic a very interesting choice.

The most annoying bugs:

When drawing a line or a polyline with the mouse, sometimes a white blinking appears instantly next to the cursor after the click
Configuring the printer isn't yet available
"Window tile" and "Window cascade" commands don't work
The attachment of images decreases a lot the performance and it's not usable
The menus contain some commands that are not supported (lights, materials, pdf attachment)

Conclusion: Despite the child diseases, Bricscad V11 Classic for Linux is a good and efficient CAD application. Bricsys seems to support well the Linux version and having the willingness for further improvements and bug fixes. (The PRO version for Linux that includes full ACIS modelling and the BRX API is already available as Beta for public testing.)

Rating: 4/5: Needs some improvements but I am sure that the rating will be better in the near future... At this time is a good choice if you are not affected or you don't care about its bugs.

Application Review: Bricscad V11 Classic Linux (Part I)

2011-03-29T23:58:00.001+03:00

Bricscad is well known on Linux world. Not only for being the first native dwg-based CAD, but also for the support of the Wine version some years ago. Bricscad Classic is at the moment the only product of Bricsys that runs on Linux. Pro version with support of full ACIS 3D modelling, rendering and BRX, will be released later.

Bricscad uses wxWidgets toolkit to built the GUI and the result on GNOME is beautiful but on KDE a total disaster! After testing some CAD applications I have to say that KDE is not the best choice for a Linux CAD workstation, and appearance is not the only reason. Performance is also better on GNOME especially with Bricscad.
Bricsys provides deb and rpm packages of Bricscad and tgz packages for custom installations. Packages are 32bit only but marked as architecture independent, so you don't have to use terminal for installing on 64bit systems. Therefore my suggestion is to use 32bit OS.
Bricscad is available for free download (registration required), and you can test it for 30 days without any limitations. Commercial licenses of Bricscad Classic for Linux start from 315 € (without VAT)

The first impression of Bricscad Classic for Linux was a bit disappointing. Some very annoying bugs and an unpolished look and feel, make me wonder if anybody would spend some money to buy this stuff especially after the release of DraftSight for Linux. After some days of usage I realized that Bricscad is a good product. Problems are something common on newcomers, (see AutoCAD for Mac) but it's very uncommon for Linux users to realize that some times happens to pay for unfinished products. (Linux users are quite unfamiliar with commercial software)
Continue to Part II
*Bricscad has more difficult job than ARES to be well integrated with the Linux environment. Porting an existing application to another OS is more difficult than building from scratch a cross-platform application.
At the moment ARES seems to be better integrated and more polished than Bricscad. Nevertheless it would be wrong to say that this disadvantage will be permanent.

Bricscad V11 vs DraftSight

2011-03-23T20:37:00.002+02:00

After the release of the first Beta of DraftSight a few days ago, it's inevitable a comparison between DraftSight and Bricscad V11 Classic. Both products have similar functionality and target group. Also both have benefits and disadvantages.
For better understanding I will present the results in categories.

Look and feel:

Both Bricscad and DraftSight have a nice look. But the winner is DraftSight because fits better with the generic look and feel of your Linux desktop.

Desktop integration: Both applications integrate well with common Linux Desktops. A point goes here to Bricscad for better integration with the file manager. But DraftSight adds My Drawings folder and the "open with DraftSight" option when you right click on a supported file.

Performance: DraftSight is slower than Bricscad.
DraftSight uses less memory at program startup but Bricscad is less memory-hungry when working with dwg files.

Graphics Performance: Bricscad here is the clear winner: Loads complex dwg files faster and the performance of pan and zoom commands is much better than DraftSight's. DraftSight wins only in temporary graphics.

Features: Some features are missing from both products. DraftSight has no APIs but has some printing options (PNG, JPEG,PDF, SVG*) and table support that are not available on Bricscad. But the support of LISP and DRX APIs is a big advantage of Bricscad.

Workflow: Bricscad is easy to use and much more AutoCAD-like but I believe that DraftSight's workflow is the best. Great balance between keyboard and mouse, fast, easy to learn. I find it perfect."

Printing/Exporting: DraftSight has more printing options. You can extend Bricscad's printing functionality with the installation of cups-pdf package which gives you the "print to pdf "option.

Summary:
DraftSight is a great product and the best of all: It's free...
Bricscad V11 isn't free but is a cheap product with great value for money and better performance. If Bricsys fixes some minor bugs, that are annoying and give the feeling of an unfinished product, the result will be more than great.

Conclusion: The choice between these two programs depends on your needs. If you can do without APIs and with slightly worse performance you have to choose DraftSight. Otherwise Bricscad is your choice.

*SVG printing didn't work for me.

Other Useful Software

2011-03-18T13:13:00.005+02:00

The most common question for someone who wants to migrate to Linux is:
OK seems good but I don't use only CAD, how can I get all my work done with Linux.
The truth is that Linux supports a wide range of software (Free/Open Source or not) which can be very useful and productive
In this post I present advanced software that might be useful for engineers and designers for professional/productive use. Very common applications like Office Suites are excluded

Graphic tools:
GIMP: GIMP is an awesome piece of software that can create and edit raster images. supports a variety of image formats including proprietary formats like .psd. It's Open Source Software
Inkscape: Very effective vector graphics program, easy and clean with great support of the svg file format, better than a lot of commercial packages. It's Open Source too
Krita: Krita is an advanced painting program part of the Calligra Suite (formerly known as Koffice suite). Open Source program

3D Graphics:
Blender: Blender is an advanced 3D graphics program with a built-in powerful and very fast rendering engine. It's Open Source and has a lot of users.
Maya: Commercial advanced 3D graphics program from Autodesk. Supports 64bit Fedora and RHEL
K-3D: Simple and easy Open Source program
Wings 3D: An advanced 3D subvision modeler. Open Source program

Office tools:
Scribus: Open Source Desktop Publisher. Feature rich and effective
Lyx: WYSIWYM document processor, LateX front-end very effective with scientific documents.

FEA/CAE
Gmsh: 3D finite element mesh generator with pre-post processor capabilities. Open Source
ANSYS: Commercial well known engineering simulation program
ABAQUS: Commercial program from Simulia (Dassault), supports 64bit Linux
Patran/Nastran: Commercial CAE tools from MSC
Algor Simulation: Commercial package from Autodesk for Mechanical Simulation. Linux version has no GUI
Salome: Open Source platform for pre-post processing for numerical simulation. Can use a variety of external solvers like Code_Aster
OpenFOAM: Open source 3 dimensional CFD software developed by a commercial company. Commercial support is available
Paraview: Paraview is an advanced data analysis and visualization program. Very effective even with very large data sheets
Range Software: Commercial finite element analysis and engineering simulations program. Free 30-days demo available for download and testing
FEniCS: Advanced Open Source finite element analysis tools
Gerris: Open Source solver for partial differential equations describing fluid flow

Numerical Computations/Mathematics
GNU Octave: Matlab-like high-level language for numerical computations. Open Source
Scilab: Open Source numerical computations software
Matlab: Well known commercial high-level language for numerical computations.
Maple: Commercial advanced math & engineering software
Mathematica: Commercial software for computations
Maxima: Open Source Computer Algebra System

GIS
GRASS: Powerful Open Source GIS
QGIS: Open Source GIS user-friendly. You can use it and as a GRASS front-end

How to fix the problem of DraftSight's Getting Start Guide on Evince

2011-03-15T13:26:00.001+02:00

I downloaded the Getting Start Guide of DraftSight from here and I experienced problems when I tried to open it with Evince. Most of the content wasn't visible

I finally discovered that the installation of the poppler-data package solves the problem...

So if you want to use this document simply install this package...

Draftsight for Linux finally available

2011-03-09T14:44:00.007+02:00

Finally, after a long period of waiting, Draftsight for Linux is available for public download.
Free -as in beer-, full dwg compatible 2D CAD with the benefit that it's based on Graebert's ARES, Draftsight Linux is definitely the best solution for a low cost, long time, stable and secure 2D CAD workstation.
Download it for free from here
P.S. Give it a try with Debian Squeeze or a RHEL 6 clone like Scientific Linux. Otherwise you can use Ubuntu LTS or OpenSUSE.

Installed just before a few seconds on Ubuntu 11.04 Alpha 3 with the new Unity Interface

Bricscad V11 Classic for Linux: First Impression

2011-03-08T12:44:00.001+02:00

I'm currently testing Bricscad V11 Classic. Unpolished, unfinished, powerful and fast, wannabe the best but currently lacks. These words can describe perfectly my first impression of Bricscad V11 Classic for Linux.
( a complete review will be available soon...)

Compiling FreeCAD on Ubuntu: The easy way

2011-03-05T20:18:00.000+02:00

If you are curious about the progress on FreeCAD's development you will probably like the idea of installing the latest development release from source. Let's do that step by step on Ubuntu following the instructions of FreeCAD's documentation

Enabling the Source code repository

The very first step is to enable the Source-Code repository on your system. This is necessary for the second step. Go to Ubuntu Software Center and select Edit--->Software Sources from menu. Then select the Source Code choice on the first tab. Reload your package manager's information (you will be prompted to do that after closing the window)

Installing building dependencies

Now you have to install the necessary packages for building FreeCAD. You can do this automatically by typing the following command in terminal

sudo apt-get build-dep freecad

Downloading the latest source

Now you have to get the latest development version of FreeCAD's source code. You can do it easily by typing the following command in a terminal:

svn co https://freecad.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/free-cad/trunk freecad

This command will download the latest available source code of FreeCAD and save it inside the freecad folder in your home directory

Building

First use Synaptic or Software Center to install automake and libtool packages or install them via terminal with the command:

sudo apt-get install automake libtool

Open a terminal (if you don't have any opened) and move to your freecad folder : cd freecad
Type the following 3 commands :

./autogen.sh

./configure

make

The first command creates a configuration script, the second command uses this script to check if your system is ready to build the package and the last command builds the package. This last command usually takes some time to be finished.

Installing

Simply type:

make install

to install your package to your home folder ( you don't need to use sudo). This command will install FreeCAD in the FreeCAD folder inside your home directory. You can run FreeCAD by clicking on the FreeCAD executable archive inside the ~/FreeCAD/bin/ folder. You can create a launcher on Desktop for easy access to the program.

Uninstalling

Just delete the FreeCAD folder

Draftsight Windows vs Bricscad Linux: Cost Comparison

2011-02-28T21:27:00.004+02:00

As you already know Draftsight -the free 2D ARES-based AutoCAD clone from Dassault- has released the final version for Windows a few days ago. Linux version, although it had been announced, seems to be delayed for unknown reasons and I didn't find any information about the future. So the user who wants a free dwg cad system has to use Windows? I don't think so...

In this post I'll show how the cost of buying and maintaining Windows is actually higher than using Linux and a commercial 2D CAD application like Bricscad Classic. As time period I choose 5 years, the typical lifecycle of a Windows computer for productive use. I ignore some parameters, like the better performance of Linux on older hardware that increases the lifecycle of your computer and reduces the cost of updating hardware, or some possible stability and performance issues on software that need extra maintenance.

So the testing parameters are 5years lifecycle, only routine maintenance tasks, no hardware failures, typical configuration. Prices are in Euros

Cost

Draftsight Windows

OS license: 80-100
Antivirus software: 250 (50 per year)*
CAD Software license: 0

Total:330-350 €

Bricscad Linux

OS license: 0
Antivirus software: 0
CAD software license: 315 (+ VAT for customers inside EU)

Total: 315 € (+ VAT for customers inside EU)

* Antivirus software has many versions and a wide range of prices. Free antivirus like Windows Security Essentials or Avira Free aren't recommended for professional but only for home usage. Also the cost decreases a lot if you buy multiple licenses therefore this is not the target group of this specific usage of a 2D CAD I am trying to describe in this post. Multiple licenses are needed if you have many workstations and this affects people who use a 2D CAD package to have backwards compatibility when migrating to 3D CAD like Solidworks. This post is for people who want only a 2D CAD package like small offices of 1-2 workstations. For these people the typical cost is 35-70 Euros per year so I believe that 50 Euros per year describes well the real cost.

Maintenance (Typical necessary tasks)

Windows

Defragmentations (1 per year minimum if you don't want to wait a lot for simple tasks)
Installation of 1-2 Service Packs
Antivirus scanning
Various simple cleaning tasks ( cleanup: registry, browser cache, deleting unnecessary files etc)

Linux

First installation
New installations or dist-upgrades (about 1-2 for a period of 5 years**)
Various simple cleaning tasks ( cleanup: packages cache, browser cache, etc)

** When you use a distro recommended for professional usage, with a long maintenance cycle like Ubuntu LTS, Debian, CentOS etc. Distros with a 6-month release cycle and maintenance cycle of 18 months are primarily for home usage and not recommended for professional usage. Also you are not recommended to use unsupported distros, so I think that upgrades are necessary.

Conclusion

So as you can see the between the two configurations cost is similar and Linux is the clear winner on maintenance. Defragmentations and installations of Service Packs are very painful and demand much more time than upgrading or having a clean install on a Linux system. So if you want a cost-effective 2D CAD workstation and you can't wait for the Linux version of Draftsight the choice of Linux+Bricscad probably saves for you time and money than staying on Windows and using the free-of-charge Draftsight.

PS 1: The free-of-charge version of Draftsight does not contain commercial support.
PS 2: Special offers of Bricscad are available sometimes.
PS 3: It's possible to run the Windows version of Draftsight on Linux via Wine. I don't like this solution because I want native Linux applications but if you want, you can give it a try.

Application Review: ARES Commander Edition for Linux (Part II)

2011-02-24T23:44:00.003+02:00

Continuing from Part I

Workflow

ARES is the end-result of more than 250 man-years of development (5 calendar years) from Graebert, one of the pioneers in CAD software development since 1983

from Graebert's website.

Well I think that ARES developers tried very hard to provide a usable and fast workflow. The relevance between the usage of the two input devices (mouse and keyboard) seems to be the part on which they spent a lot of time.
Also the need of staying familiar with the AutoCAD-like workflow, still necessary especially for people who need to migrate from AutoCAD to ARES without spending a lot of money for training, continues to exist.
I think that the result is really very good. Definitely workflow is not a reason for someone to abort the migration to ARES.

Features

ARES Commander Edition is a full-featured product.

The Linux version has the same functionality with the Windows version.

There are missing only some Windows-specific features (OLE, EMF) and APIs (VSTA, COM, ActiveX, encrypted LISP).

The support of ACIS 3d modelling makes ARES unique at the time being in Linux world, so if this feature is necessary for you, ARES Commander Edition is your only choice at the moment.

Conclusion: If you want a solid and full-featured dwg-based CAD solution that works well with Linux and for productive purposes, ARES Commander Edition is the right application for you.

Rating: 5/5 Anything lower than this will be unfair

My last thought is about the right configuration of a Linux machine for long-time, stable, easy and productive usage with ARES Commander Edition. I think that the best distro for that is the new Debian Squeeze.

If you are not familiar with Debian try Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.

You will not be disappointed.

Application Review: ARES Commander Edition for Linux (Part I)

2011-02-23T21:24:00.001+02:00

ARES is a newcomer in Linux world. Released on October 2010 is one of the two -the other is Bricscad- Autocad-like .dwg based applications that are available on Linux.

ARES is available as rpm and deb package for all major distros

(Debian, Ubuntu ,OpenSUSE, Fedora) and as .tgz for custom installations. It has 32bit packages only, but you can easily install it on 64bit systems although my suggestion is to use 32bit OS.

ARES uses Qt to provide a nice and clean GUI, similar but not same with the familiar AutoCAD classic look.

The icons are too large and I think that many users will find this annoying but it's very easy to reduce their size to normal.

The application offers about 400 commands and variables, full ACIS 3d modelling, support for DRX, LISP APIs. Some Windows-specific features like VBA, encrypted LISP, OLE, ActiveX, and COM are not supported by the Linux version.

Trial versions are available through Graebert's site.
There are two different ways to test ARES:

Unlimited time with limited functionality and without registration.
Full function 30-days testing with registration.

A full commercial license of ARES Commander Edition costs 995 euros,

about 30% lower than AutoCAD LT.

Testing ARES CE on Ubuntu

Installation

Easy and fast. With gdebi package installer (I prefer it than Software Center when I want to install single debs on Ubuntu) took about 30 seconds and 3 mouse clicks to complete the installation. Application Launchers were created successfully at the right place (the Graphics menu).

Desktop integration

ARES integrates well with GNOME, Themes applied successfully and the application looks very nice and clean. On KDE the application has the plastique theme instead of oxygen and this is a KDE issue with applications that use previous versions of Qt than the system uses.

Performance

ARES works very well with nVIDIA cards and the proprietary driver. I experienced some problems with ATI cards with both open and fglrx drivers - the drawing area was blinking after opening a dwg drawing- but this was finally solved after I disabled compositing (Compiz or Kwin effects). I don't know if this affects all ATI cards but I know that it does not affect all dwg files. The GUI has good responsiveness and dwg files are loaded very fast.

Read Part II here

When we will see Draftsight for Linux?

2011-02-23T15:59:00.004+02:00

Draftsight released the stable version for Windows,
Mac version still beta but is out there.
What about the Linux version?

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see what this phrase means on Wikipedia

FreeCAD 0.11 is almost ready

2011-02-22T09:01:00.001+02:00

FreeCAD is an Open Source 3d Solid Modeler based on OpenCASCADE.

It's under strong development and all features are not implemented yet, but I think that when finished, FreeCAD will be a great and powerful alternative to well known proprietary competitors like Solidworks, Pro/Engineer (Creo) etc.

Version 0.11 brings huge improvements on speed and workflow.

It's not ready yet for professional usage,but is a great step forward to FreeCAD's development and maybe very soon we will have a complete and powerful professional Free and Opensource 3D CAD solution.

5 Reasons to use 32bit Linux with ARES and Bricscad

2011-02-06T19:31:00.004+02:00

ARES and Bricscad are the 2 dwg-based Autocad-like programs that are available for Linux. Both are available for 32bit OS. It is easy to install a 32bit application on 64bit Linux but I believe that using a 32bit OS is better.
Some reasons are:

Easier installation. When you try to install 32bit applications on 64bit Linux systems you may have to install manually some 32bit libraries and/or to use command line. Nothing difficult but annoying especially for newcomers.
Commercial support: When you buy an application like ARES or Bricscad you also buy support. While Graebert and Bricsys support only 32bit versions of Linux distros, you are strongly recommended to use 32bit OS because you avoid possible bugs that exist on 64bit platform.
Performance: If you believe that using a 64bit OS will gives you extra speed you are wrong. This happens only if your applications have been written for 64bit usage. In the case of ARES and Bricscad this doesn't happen.
You have more than 4GB RAM? Don't worry! 32bit Linux can handle up to 64 GB of RAM. Simply install PAE kernel. This will happen automatically if you try to install 32bit Ubuntu 10.04/10.10 and you have a working Internet connection and your computer has more than 3.5 GB of RAM..
Availability of common used applications like Flash, Google Earth, and some proprietary hardware drivers is better on 32bit Linux.

Installing GLC_Player on Ubuntu

2011-01-31T19:22:00.001+02:00

If you ever wanted to view some Dassault's 3dxml files on Linux probably you already know about GLC_Player
It's a small app that can handle those files and more 3d formats like 3ds,dae etc

At the downloads section of their site I found the source code and I tried to compile it without success.
Fortunately for Ubuntu users the application exists on getdeb repository.
So add to your software sources the getdeb repository (It's very easy you can find instructions here)
and simply install GLC_Player via Synaptic or Software Center

Photo 1: GLC_Player reading a .3dxml file

Photo 2: About GLC_Player screen

How to unlock the power of Linux (Part II)

2011-01-30T22:41:00.002+02:00

Continue from Part I

Step 3
Understand some basics about your new OS. For example learn how to navigate through external disk drivers using your file browser and check out your folders locations. This takes about a minute to learn and it is very helpful when you try to open drawing files directly from your CAD application. For example you can find your external usb flash drives in the /media directory.
Step 4
Keep your system up-to date. This means that you have access to all bug fixes which your distro provides you. Important: Update only from your distro's repositories and don't use experimental packages unless you have a problem and you are sure that using a non-official package update will solve it. For example Ubuntu has a PPA for updating your proprietary nVIDIA driver easily. It's strongly recommended not to use this PPA unless you have problems with the existing driver and you are sure that an update to a newer version solves them.
Step 5
Keep learning. In Linux world, things change rapidly. So you have to be well informed about things that you have to know and affect your work. New applications, huge improvements on existing apps and new features are very common in Opensource Software and Linux. This blog will try hard to bring you all the things you have to know for Opensource and proprietary CAD for Linux. Stay tuned

How to unlock the power of Linux (Part I)

2011-01-25T12:46:00.005+02:00

Well I decided to write a few posts about how to unlock the power of Linux while you are using it for productive purposes. Linux has the benefits that is highly customizable,stable, secure and can run well on older computers.

But when you come from a Windows world you may expect some problems until you get familiar with your new software. Also some experienced Linux users have problems to make themselves work for productive purposes with Linux because they treat their OS like a toy. They want to play with it, they install every experimental piece of software they find out there and cannot truly help inexperienced users because they don't have the way to communicate with them and understand their needs.
I don't believe that noobs must stay noobs for their entire life. All people must get some basic knowledge about computers but I don't think that bash scripting is necessary for someone who wants to design a house or a gear on a Linux machine in 2011.
Now we are ready to start...
Step 1
Choosing the right distro. Linux has a lot of flavors. For professional CAD usage I think that is better to choose Ubuntu LTS or OpenSUSE. These are well maintained distros, easy to use, powerful and binary compatible with all Linux CAD packages. Important: It's better to choose your system architecture (32 or 64 bit) in relevance with the availability of the CAD package you would like to use. For example if you like to use Bricscad or ARES it's better to use 32bit OS although both can be installed on a 64bit OS. Don't worry about your RAM. 32bit Linux can handle up to 64 GB of RAM.
Step 2
Test before using. First check out with a live-cd of your distro if your hardware works properly. Then install your distro on your machine and test the application(s) you are about to use. Installation is necessary because you have to test in real conditions.

Continue to Part II

CADopia moved from ITC to ARES. May we expect a Linux version ?

2011-01-21T13:17:00.002+02:00

CADopia, an old member of IntelliCAD Technology Consortium, moved to ARES as base for their products.
As you already know ARES is available for Linux. May we expect a new entry on Linux CAD software?

Well I don't think that their plans include Linux support , at least not for now. Moving to Linux isn't a bad idea but we must have in mind that the first 2 dwg-based programs have been released the last 3 months (Bricscad and ARES). So we can't safely conclude if CAD market is ready for Linux. Also we are waiting for Draftsight and QCAD 3 Professional, so the number of Linux dwg-based CAD programs goes to four. I believe that for the moment we don't need a fifth member in this group.
Maybe in a couple of years...

Tip: Change the toolbar's icons size on ARES

2011-01-17T12:07:00.001+02:00

Well the first thing I dislike on ARES is the size of the icons. I think that they are too large. I don't know why they choose to use so large icons
but I think that is a very bad idea.
Let's see how to change the icons size to normal.

Launch ARES

Open Tools-->Options from menu

Select System Options --> Display --> Screen Options and deselect "Use large icons"

Click OK and ARES will look like this

Much better...

Application Review: LibreCAD (Part II)

2011-01-14T13:47:00.006+02:00

As I wrote in Part I LibreCAD is primarily focused on occasional and amateur CAD users.
That doesn't mean that you cannot use it for professional purposes.

The dxf interface, which offers interoperability with other CAD programs
and the ability to use the partlibrary of QCAD Professional
(you can download it for free from Ribbonsoft's Site),
adds extra functionality.
In order to use the partlibrary just create a folder named .librecad (don't forget the dot), then create a subfolder named library and put inside the contents of partlibrary.

Then open LibreCAD and right click on the toolbar

Select the Library Browser and enjoy.

Performance Issues

Sometimes the GUI doesn't have good responsiveness and sometimes you have to wait or to double click in order to execute a command. But do not forget that the application is in beta stage and most of these issues will be fixed in further releases.

If you like LibreCAD but you want dwg support you have to wait for the upcoming release of QCAD Professional 3. It will have support for the most releases of this -proprietary but very common- file format.

(More info at Ribbonsoft's site and forum)

Also note that QCAD Professional costs about 24 Euros (33 US $)

and it isn't Free and Opensource Software.

You can find news and more information about LibreCAD at application's blog

Conclusion:

Definitely LibreCAD is a good application. It lacks of some features in comparison with proprietary apps but in fact doesn't want to compete them directly. It wants to be an easy-to-use CAD program which gives the opportunity to occasional and amateur users to make drawings fast, easy and free.

Try it and you will not be disappointed.

Rating 3/5

Application Review: LibreCAD (Part I)

2011-01-14T02:41:00.006+02:00

LibreCAD is a fork of QCAD Community Edition. It has a new GUI based on Qt 4x and some new features
such as polyline support which was missing from QCAD CE
You can install it easily on Ubuntu via PPA
Just type the following commands in a terminal
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:showard314/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install librecad
Users of rpm based distros like OpenSUSE, Fedora, Mandriva etc can download packages from here
Note that LibreCAD is currently in beta stage so you have to expect some problems, but it is stable enough to use it and definitely more usable than QCAD CE.

After installing you can find it under the Graphics Menu.
The GUI looks familiar to people who have already tested QCAD.
The position of the buttons and the menu entries are the same but the new look is much more beautiful and well integrated with the modern Linux Desktop Environments.

LibreCAD just like QCAD is a 2D only application and
it can read and save 2000 ASCII .dxf files.
If you come from AutoCAD you may find difficult the workflow of LibreCAD.
The truth is that it isn' t so difficult. LibreCAD does not have so much features and automations but it has some very interesting features such as multiple offset and it is very easy for the first time user of a CAD program to make a drawing.
Don't forget that occasional and amateur users are the primary target group of LibreCAD.
Continue to Part II

How to install Graebert's ARES Commander Edition on (K)Ubuntu 10.10 64 bit

2011-01-12T20:04:00.004+02:00

Well as the title says here you will learn how to install ARES on a 64bit Ubuntu system

First download the latest trial version (.deb package)
of ARES Commander Edition from here
Move it to your home folder for simplicity
If you try to open it with gdebi or Software Center you will see this error message
''Error wrong architecture - i386"
So you need some magic from the command line

Open a terminal and type:
sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture package_name
(simply type the first 2-3 letters and press tab to get it)
After typing your password you will stop in another error message which informs you about a missing dependence libc6-i686
If you try now to install manually from Software Center or Synaptic this package you will see that it is already installed but with a different name (libc6-i386).If it's not installed simply install it ( it's necessary ) but the error message continues to appear if you try to give again the previous command in terminal.
So the only thing you have to do is to add another parameter to the previous command
It must be like that:
sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture --ignore-depends=libc6-i686 package_name
Waiting for a while and your trial version of this professional CAD system will be ready for use

Update(24/01/2011): This bug has been fixed in version 10.12.205 of ARES CE. So you have only to use the --force-architecture parameter to successfully install ARES on (K)Ubuntu 64bit

Screenshots of CAD apps

2011-01-12T14:58:00.001+02:00

Here are some screenshots of CAD applications running on Linux (Ubuntu 10.10)

ARES CE

LibreCAD

FreeCAD

Trying to decide about the first review...

2011-01-11T20:31:00.001+02:00

Well I try to get a decision about the first application review in this blog.
Major candidates are LibreCAD and ARES.
ARES as more powerful app has a benefit but I would also like to begin with an open source application such as LibreCAD
The decision is difficult but you will learn it in a couple of days

TeighaViewer for Linux

2011-01-10T14:46:00.002+02:00

TeighaViewer is a .dwg .dxf and .dgn viewer from Open Design Alliance.

You can download it for free here
Unfortunately for Ubuntu users it comes as .rpm package (32bit only)

Let's see how to install it in Ubuntu and other .deb based distros

First you have to install alien from Software Center, Synaptic or via terminal with

sudo apt-get install alien

Alien is a command-line tool for converting packages from rpm to deb and vice versa

Download TeighaViewer and move it from downloads to your home folder.

This is necessary if you don't want (or if you don't know how) to use cd

Open a terminal and type:

sudo alien -dci package_name ( Simply type the first 2-3 letters and press tab )

Type your password and press enter. Your package will be converted to a .deb and installed after a few minutes.

Troubleshooting

ΤeighaViewer has no problem reading the supported files but has some very annoying problems and bugs.

First is the menu entries in both KDE and Gnome.

In KDE you will found it under the category Applications--->Tools !? and in Gnome

under Applications--->Universal Access!!!??? So use menu editor to put it to the Graphics menu.

Also you may expect some random crashes when you try to open the application and you cannot print or plot. These commands open the print dialog box but still are not usable.

Rating 1.5/5 Awesome with .dwg and .dxf files can handle correct almost all types of these formats but needs much more improvement to become ready for daily use.

2011-01-08T19:55:00.000+02:00

This blog is dedicated to the combination of the Linux (or GNU/Linux if you want it) OS and Computer Aided Design (CAD). In the future you will find here reviews of Linux CAD applications, news, tips and tricks and - I hope- much more interesting things.

Hello World !!!

2011-01-08T19:41:00.000+02:00

This is my first post!!!