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Open-Source CAD Tools?
curtS asks: "Oregon, though with a significant technology industry, continues to use pencil and drawing board in most high school drafting classes. This does little to assist students in career preparation, whether they're interested in drawing PCBs or kitchen cabinets. Not surprisingly, a central issue is cost. High-performance hardware is, thanks to AMD, becoming more available, but what about software? Are there open-source tools out there that can help? Any experiences in other locales?" Would anyone familiar with any Open Source CAD packages care to comment on their experiences? In what area do the open source packages need to improve (if any) to bring them up to par with the functionality of their commercial counterparts?
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Being a longtime AutoCAD user (since rel 9), I've tried just about every open source CAD program I could find. Unfortunately, none of them measure up to AutoCAD in terms of usability, features, and extensibility.
There is a CAD program called IntelliCAD that Visio developed before being bought by Microsoft. It's basically an AutoCAD clone, minus some of the 3D features (it even runs AutoLISP routines). Now its source code is available, albeit not under an open source or free software license.
On its online forum, several people expressed interest in porting it to Linux. One of its former developers from Visio said it should be possible, as the core code is pretty much ISO C++. The part that wouold take the most effort to port would be the GUI, as it's all MFC presently.
Some people have had success running it under WINE.
I had to do it in college before they let me into the CAD lab. From doing it, I know why they made that decision.
From that, on my own, I designed my first PC board on paper, transferred it to copper-clad with carbon-paper. I then learned how to do it with EDA software.
I even designed one by hand at a job because it was a simple circuit and I wanted to do it quickly.
It's kind of like understanding assembly better when you've done digital courses.
Call me old school, BUT
Drafting is one of those skills (Like woodworking) where learning to do it by HAND, first, is an important skill. There will be many times where you have to lay out a print etc on a physical item. Your NOT going to fit a slab of sheet metal in your laser printer.
The skill you learn, like what the different line types mean, and HOW to do a layout carries over just fine, and in fact, rapidly shows you the real limitations of most of the lower end CAD programs out there - and I count AutoCAD as a lower end cad! AutoCAD, and a LOT of the other CAD programs out there are great for architectural CAD by stink to mechanical CAD
That said, there is a AutoCAD clone, called Intellicad, that is available free, from http://www.cadopia.com
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
One important part that still has to be overcome in MANY school districts, is the fear of the free products...
be it beer or speech.
While the open-source CAD tools may be on par with autocad and the like, the fact that they are open source, or made for linux, will be something that would keep even cash-strapped districts away from it, because "its not something they can trust, with no 800 number they can call with problems and get a chance to pay to listen to classical music for an hour" (I've actually heard a teacher say this)
While the Open-source movement is gaining a lot of ground, which is a great thing, it still has lots of work to be done to get people to accept the fact that M$ is not part of the government and they dont need to pay the Micro$oft tax on each piece of computer equipment they buy.
Stop over-analyzing your analizations
Of course, there is xfig http://www-epb.lbl.gov/BVSmith/xfig/ but it isn't really CAD (doesn't have dimensioning, but v3.2.3c has layers). You can do exact drawings, but the lack of dimensioning makes it a little bit tiresome. Advantages: it runs on many Unices and doesn't require Qt, good user-interface.
For 2D CAD I can recommend Qcad http://www.qcad.org, it runs under linux (requires Qt 2.x), of course you can always try to compile it for other platforms. Advantages: supports DXF (Autocad), has dimensioning, multiple undo, advanced snapping functions. Disadvantages: slow user interface (too much clicking required). Qcad has also a non-free brother "CAM Expert".
QCad, for Qt, is a passable 2D drafting program which is totally free and is similar to TurboCAD. It would work fine for basic 2D mechanical drawings.
LinuxCAD is worthless. Don't waste your money on that piece of crap.
BRL-CAD, courtesy of the US Army Ballistics Research Lab, will work on Linux and can do raytracing, and has 3D solid modeling capabilities. Your school could probably get a free license from the US Army if you ask nicely and promise not to export the program to Iraq. It doesn't have dimensioning capabilities; however if you have a Top Secret government clearance, you can get optional plug-in modules so that if you draft a tank, you can hit it with a simulated laser beam an analyse the damage. I just have the basic package myself, and its pretty cool for being free. The coffee mug from the tutorial looks very nice in raytraced mode.
And thats it. Take your pick.
Clickety Click
I performed a quick search on Freshmeat for you. Here's the results (filtered for stuff that's actually relevant, I think). In no particular order:
CYCAS - not sure if it's open-source, but will run on Linux and BSD and looks pretty powerful
Jcad - written in Java, this is an open-sourced CAD which works with DXF file formats. Not the most powerful of tools out there, but it's a start
iCADis - can't tell much from the site, but it might be worth a try. Uses GTK and is covered by the GPL
OCTree - looks like it has a really innovative interface. Not sure about the license though.
Varicad - for mechanical engineering. Looks good, but unsure if it's open.
QCad - seems to be one of the better ones, and it's open.
That's all I can find. You can judge yourself if you need it to be 100% open-source, if you need it to be free, and if you need it to run on a particular platform. Perhaps you might settle on a combination of these, since it doesn't look likely that you'll find something that meets all 3 conditions (assuming you were looking for it).
If you're a programmer, then by all means help out with one of the open-source projects out of the ones mentioned above. Lots of them could use things like improved rendering (speed, effects etc), and the ability to load lots of different file formats.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.