DraftSight Linux goes 64 bit

According to official sources, the next (V1R6) release of DraftSight for Linux will be 64bit instead of the 32bit  older releases. This will make many Linux users happy because a native 64bit DraftSight version was a very popular demand. Unfortunately for users with older machines the 32bit version will be dropped.

DraftSight V1R5.2 fixes localization bug

DraftSight V1R5.2 is out and the important news are that now Linux users can open their files normally without worrying if the path contains any non-English characters. Finally after six months of waiting, DraftSight Linux users can expect normal functionality when they try  to open their files.

You can download DraftSight V1R5.2 from here. As usually 32 bit .deb and .rpm files are available.

Teigha Viewer and Teigha File Converter have been upated to v4.00

Teigha Viewer an Teigha File Converter the official tools from ODA for viewing and converting dwg files have been updated to v4.00. The big news for this release is the availability of these two interesting apps for android devices. As usual ODA provides 32bit-only .deb and .rpm packages but you can easily install them without modifications on a 64bit system.

You can download them from ODA's website. Both applications are available without any charge.

DraftSight V1R5.1 is out.

An update for DraftSight, the popular free DWG based CAD from Dassault Systemes, is now available. V1R5.1 comes with no major changes and unfortunately doesn't fix the bug with non-English characters.

BricsCAD V14 for Linux is out !!!

Today Bricsys announced the availability of BricsCAD V14 for Linux. This new release has a lot of new features and improvements.

DraftSight V1R5 is out with a lot of changes

DraftSight V1R5 has been released and its Linux version has some significant changes.
Most important of all is the change of the package name and the new locations of files and folders.

ARES CE gets a new major upgrade but...

Graebert released a new major upgrade for the ARES CE dwg-based CAD program. This new version comes with major changes and as the company claims it also has performance improvements. Unfortunately, the Linux version is garbage. It's impossible to run the software under Linux and in some cases even the installation isn't possible . I spent a lot of time trying different combinations of software and hardware. I tried Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit and 13.10 32bit with both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, with or without proprietary drivers, without any success at all. I also tried various workarounds but probably this is a problematic Linux release of ARES CE. It seems that Linux users have to wait for a fixed version in order to run the new release and test its new features under their favorite OS.

RibbonSoft released QCAD 3.4

A new version of QCAD has been released a few days ago. This new version contains some new features, like a new view mode and support for custom properties. Any Linux users that are interested in trying this CAD application, can download QCAD here. QCAD 3.4 will work just fine in any modern Linux distro.

DraftSight V1R3.2 is available for download!

The last few days a new release of DraftSight has been available for download.
V1R3.2 doesn't introduce any new features. It's a quality, bug-fixing release only.
You can download it for free and use it for free after a simple registration.
As usual, only 32bit installers are available for Linux users (both .deb and .rpm).

Teigha Viewer and Teigha File Converter 3.09 have been released.

Newer versions of ODA's products are available for download. Teigha Viewer and Teigha File Converter have been updated to version 3.09. Both programs are available as 32bit .deb and .rpm files. 64bit Ubuntu users can install successfully these useful programs with the installation of ia32-libs package.

QCAD/CAM adds CAM functionality to QCAD 3 pro

RibbonSoft announced the availability of QCAD/CAM an add-on for QCAD 3 pro that adds CAM functionality on the existing CAD application.
QCAD/CAM allows you to export your drawings to the popular gcode format that can be used to control several types of CNC machines.
QCAD/CAM is available for Linux and you can download a free trial from here.

 CAM Export Configuration Dialog Box

The CAM pull-down menu

Teigha Viewer and Teigha File Converter 3.08.2 are available for download

A new version of Teigha Viewer, the free .dwg .dxf and .dgn viewer provided by ODA, is available for download. The most exciting thing of this release is the availability of Teigha File Converter for Linux, a formerly Windows-only application, for rapid massive conversion of files to different versions of .dwg and .dxf formats.

Teigha File Converter on Ubuntu

New online part library for DraftSight users

TraceParts with this press release announced the availability of a new service exclusively for DraftSight users.
From now DraftSight users have access to millions of 2D drawings for standard parts from a variety of supplier catalogs.
After a simple registration DraftSight users can navigate to the online library and download any of the available drawings for free.

FreeCAD 0.13 is now stable

FreeCAD 0.13 is now the latest stable release of FreeCAD. This version has a lot of improvements and  a new Ubuntu PPA for stable releases.

• Release Notes
• Complete changelog
• Ubuntu Stable PPA

FreeCAD is an Open Source Parametric Solid Modeler. It has excellent community support, modular architecture and it's fully programmable via Python.

DraftSight V1R3.1 is now available !

Dassault released today an updated version for DraftSight. This new V1R3.1 version fixes 2 bugs in fonts:

- The display of .ttf fonts in model and paper space.
- The PDF export of .shx fonts (Capital E letter problem)

As usual 32bit only .deb and .rpm files are available.

If you experience any problems with the download page try the direct links provided in this post.

BricsCAD V13 for Linux is now available!

Bricsys has released today the new BricsCAD V13 for Linux.

TeighaViewer 3.8-1 released

A new version of TeighaViewer is available for download. This new release has read and write support for .dwg version 2013.

Since ARES CE, BricsCAD and DraftSight use ODA's libraries to handle .dwg files I hope that soon all these programs will be able to read and write 2013 .dwg files.
(ARES CE and DraftSight  already have some basic read-only support for 2013 .dwg files)

New version for ARES CE

Graebert released an updated version for ARES CE. This new version comes with various new tools and fixes. A complete changelog is available here.
As usually .deb, .rpm and tar.gz versions are available for testing with or without registration (some features like saving and printing are not available in the unregistered version).
Unfortunately there is no native 64bit Linux version yet.
Also a special offer is valid until January 5th 2013 so you can buy ARES CE at the discounted price of 495€.

DraftSight V1R3 is available for Download

An updated version of DraftSight (v1R3) is available. This version has some new functionality for easy creation of Revision Clouds but it has also a problem with the display of .ttf fonts. You can download this version here. As usual both .rpm and .deb files are available but for 32bit Linux only.

ARCAD-C1 the new free version of ARCAD

ARCAD is a commercial 2D/3D architectural CAD package for Linux.
It comes in a variety of versions and a few days ago a free version was released.
Unfortunately it is available for older Linux versions up to 2.6.32 kernel (Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid).
I have succesfully installed this version on a Kubuntu 12.04 32bit machine but with a quick look it seems to be a very problematic installation. So if you want to test this version, it is highly recommended to use only Ubuntu 10.04.
More info and installation instructions about this release here.