Re: gEDA-user: PCB+GL+3D Packages??

[kai-martin knaak <kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ok, I'l play the FreeCAD advovate again:

John Griessen wrote:

> HeeksCAD can do both those things and has python interface instead
> of a "subset" script language (another new language)...or it has 
> a GUI to make sketches (2D outlines) from faces of solid primitives
> or from complex booleans of solids.

.. and that's about all it can do right now. I don't want to frustrate
your enthusiasm. But if the goal 3D mechanical CAD, the heekscad project
is pretty much embryonic. Just look at the "UsingHeeksCAD" page: 
	http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/wiki/UsingHeeksCAD

Now for the FreeCAD project: 
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/
The projects are quite similar in many aspects. Both aim to develop into
a full fledged 3D mechanical CAD application. On a low level they both use
the same infrastructure - OpenCascade and C++. Both of them offer a python 
API for user interaction. 
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Power_users_hub

Since last time I checked, the freeCAD project acquired a second lead
developer and a host of contributors. It is gaining even more momentum
than it had in march. An important ingredient to user acceptance is the
inclusion to the debian repository (is part of squeeze). 

About every aspect of the projects compares like the two wikis:
  http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/w/list
  http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Main_Page
Both do it, but there is definitely more flesh to FreeCAD. And it is getting
better by the day.

---<)kaimartin(>---

PS: I like the home page of the freeCAD project. It provides intuitive
access to advertising (screenshots) newbie information (getting 
started) and developer specials, too. The geda home page tries the same 
but is less intuitive by far. IMHO, the key component is the side bar. 
It presents a relieable access to the index of the site. This is 
a web page design, that is proven to work for complex content. How 
about morphing the geda site into something similar? Yes, this is
mediawiki, while geda uses dokuwiki. However, I know, this can 
be done with dokuwiki, too -- my wiki at work is based on dokuwiki.
( http://bibo.iqo.uni-hannover.de/dokuwiki/doku.php )
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak
Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel:
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x6C0B9F53



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