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GPL-Licensed QCAD Ported to Mac OS X

Posted by timothy on from the slickness-and-light dept.

AlwaysTimeForCoffee writes "QCad, a free open-source 2D CAD system for Linux, various Unices and Windows, from RibbonSoft, has been ported to a native OS X version by Gilbert Duivesteijn. A screenshot of the OS X version can be found here. Qcad is a light, GPL'd version of the commercial available CAM Expert. It truely is an outstanding program and has earned 5 out of 5 Penguins on Tucow's Linuxberg and IceWalker review. With this native OS X release, a commercial quality CAD system has been made available to the Apple community."

4 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. NonNative by norwoodites · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is not native, it uses QT which uses custom widgets so it is slow, a native would use Cocoa (or maybe Carbon) libraries and almost no custom widgets.

  2. Re:Apple needs to attract some CAD companies by Thomas+A.+Anderson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I agree that qcad is not for the big boys (don't get me wrong - i've used it for a while in linux and love it - but autocad it's not).

    It's too bad AutoCad dunmped their unix versions about 7 or 8 years ago (somehwere around version 11 I think). I used it in unix back in college and was blown away at how pewerful it is.

    It is true that the G5 is up to snuff - maybe this is just the begining...

    --
    Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)
  3. Autocad and OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Autodesk is considering porting Autocad if they receive sufficient indication of interest - it was a big enough deal to make Apple's news page. A Google search might turn something up. Here's what I could find:

    http://www.architosh.com/news/2003-05/2003c-0512 -a cad-update.phtml

  4. What QCAD really needs by baywulf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have used AutoCAD and Mechanical Desktop for many years and the biggest thing QCAD is missing in my opinion is keyboard macros. This is what made AutoCAD entry very fast for me. For example, you might first press 'L' for drawing a line. Then it asks for a starting point. Since features must me precisely placed, you must give exact coordinates or snap to an existing feature. So now you might press 'X' to enter cartision coordinates or 'P' for polar coordinates. Then it might ask you for the second point. You could snap to an existing feature. For example your press 'T' for tangent to an arc or circle or 'L' for parallel to another line. Once a good macro set is developed and you practice it, it is almost like typing on a word processor. The toolbars and menus should still be there by they should only be to help the beginner learn.