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Just a data point:

Realsoft 3D is a distant descendant of the widely acclaimed (at the time) Amiga Real3D CSG solid modeler and raytracer targetted at graphics production (though it is no longer _solely_ a solid CSG modeler). It has analytic solids, and boundary-representation solid (what you refer to as mesh-based CSG, probably) modeling.

It is particularly strong for glass effects. As you can see from the image, it models light behaviour... quite accurately. (software is nonfree, but runs on linux)

Anyway, to the point: Strangely enough, there now exists a (currently closed beta) CAD add-on for it. Revolution4D

Just a data point:

Realsoft 3D is a distant descendant of the widely acclaimed (at the time) Amiga Real3D CSG solid modeler and raytracer targetted at graphics production (though it is no longer _solely_ a solid CSG modeler). It has analytic solids, and boundary-representation solid (what you refer to as mesh-based CSG, probably) modeling.

It is particularly strong for glass effects. As you can see from the image, it models light behaviour... quite accurately. (software is nonfree, but runs on linux)

Anyway, to the point: Strangely enough, there now exists a (currently closed beta) CAD add-on for it. Revolution4D

This raytrace in particular is just amazing.

Note that what the marketers on the PeeCee redefined raytracing to mean is not the original usage - if you look at output of the descendants of amiga "raytracers", they do far more than what PC people seem to think raytracing means. As far as Mad Finnish ex-Amiga people are concerned, raytracing means tracking simulated physically-accurate beams of light through solid objects, complete with mixtures of wavelengths and so on. Caustics, prismatic spectra and the like just drop out of real raytracing. If you model the physical equations of light, you get the right answer. As far as I'm concerned, if you model a convex lens, and put it in front of an object, if the object isn't magnified, then it's not raytracing!

Lest there be any doubt on that point, check out the Realsoft Galleries of Glassware and Caustics.

I haven't used the new linux version of Realsoft 3D, but the old amiga version rocked.

Raytracing on Linux is already usable. Apart from POV , which AFAIK can do raytracing, Realsoft 3D, a new version of the old amiga Real3D (that also did raytracing, not just scanlining... WAY back in the 1990s...) is available for linux.

I didn't think so. Here's $2,000 kid, go buy yourself a real 3d app.

Real3D? Whoa... It is ages since I used that app, but it sure was cool at the time!

But nowadays it is called Realsoft 3D.

If real3d was your fave app you might be interested to know that its direct descendant, Realsoft 3D is available on Windows and (just about - working beta) Linux.

I'm not sure this is particularly different from realsoft's 3D procedural texturing (called "materials" in Real3D-speak) - Realsoft 3D is a solid modelling raytracer (rahter than the more common surface modellers) (i.e. does realistc refraction etc - the light beams go "through" all translucent objects in the scene, obeying approximations to physical laws as they go), and you could achieve a similar effect just by using a procedure that varies the transmissivity, hue (64 bit per channel is the norm in Real3D) and reflectivity of the "skin" with increasing depth. I'm pretty sure it's already been done.

The linux port of RealSoft (very cool raytracer) is supposedly to be commercially released soon. See realsoft.

Old Amiga people may recognise Realsoft as the makers of Real3D, an amiga raytacer that excelled at solid modelling and keyframe animation - it's especially good at glasses, liquids and crystals, since the light beams are modelled going through the whole material, rather than just surface effects, so you get real-looking stuff like caustics, working magnifying lenses, etc...

The new Realsoft version looks very, very cool...

For 2D static work, photogenics has been available for some time - it's really best for orignal composition, rather than image processing, and is, once again, a modernised version of an old amiga application. GIMP (and photoshop) both suck for orignal 2D work, IMHO. (then again, they both started out as "image manipulation" tools rather than bitmap-painting packages, and I did learn Amiga paint tools first...).

I agree that the state of 2D animation on linux isn't great - although, at least, we now have a decent lossless animation file format that (a) is open and (b) doesn't suck, in the form of the MNG superset of PNG - see libmng

Another *excellent* package from the Amiga days is beating them (and alias) to it :) As far as I can tell, it's the best 3D package out there, and the port to Linux is complete (in internal beta right now). They have screenshots, too. Check it out... Realsoft's home page.

• Maya
• Houdini
• Realsoft4D
• (others?)

Realsoft Oy, Finland, have decided to release the successor to their 3D animation package 'Real 3D' for Linux.

Other supported systems will be Windows and probably IRIX. Amiga is most likely being dropped and maybe Mac and possibly Be will be left to third party developers.

There is no release date yet, but the software is finally entering beta testing after years of alpha testing.

See their V4 pages.