On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, DoN. Nichols wrote:

In article au.com,
terry l. ridder wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, James Holbrook wrote:

Hi,
Just getting started in metalworking and looking for some ideas on a CAD
program.
I've used the CAD that came with eMachineShop and Rhino and like both of them
as they seem to be pretty logical in creating drawings.
I've tried TurboCAD, PowerCAD, CadStd, 3D MAX Plus, BobCAD-CAM, 3DS MAX 7 and
a few others but weren't happy. (read.. I couldn't make drawings as readily
as with Rhino. IE I couldn't select something and change dimentions of the
object but had to delete it and do again.)
Maybe I just need to get CAD books or training to be happy with the other CAD
programs.

Any ideas?


if you are willing to run linux there are several cad programs available
for free. the one of the best cad programs is brl-cad. developed by the
ballastic research laboratory it is now an open-source project hosted on
sourceforge.net. http://brlcad.org

I'm glad to hear that it is easier to get. They used it where I
used to work (an Army R&D lab) but it was a bit of a pain to get as an
individual at that time -- especially with a slow feed thrown into the
game.


yes i remember the old way of obtaining brl-cad.


I'm downloading it as I type, now.


i have it running on debian sarge with linux-2.6.10 kernel.
it works extremely well.


Looking at it, it seems that it can be compiled for almost any
modern unix. I've got both Solaris and OpenBSD running here, so I'll
have to compile it twice.


compiles cleanly.


Thanks,


you are welcome.


DoN.



--
terry l. ridder