On 06/25/2014 02:40 PM, zxq9 wrote:
> On Wednesday 25 June 2014 13:29:05 you wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I occasionally need to do some drafting.  About
>> 25 years ago I knew AutoCad somewhat.  Currently,
>> I need to do some minor landscape architecture.
>>
>> On research, I am finding four Open Source alternatives:
>>       FreeCAD
>>       QCad Community Edition
>>       Archimedes
>>       BRL-CAD
>>
>> Each seems to have it points.
>>
>> Have you guys used any of these and do you have an
>> opinion on them?  (It may come down to who has RPMs.)
>
> 	FreeCAD
> Not familiar with this.
>
> 	LibreCAD (not QCad)
> LibreCAD should replace QCad for all intents and purposes. It was a fork of
> QCad that has grown into something much more interesting. I used to package
> it, but haven't had time to work on LibreCAD or packaging for a long time (so
> my existing packages which would work on SL6 are way out of date). Anyway,
> installing it from source (or packaging it) was a snap on Fedora 14 and still
> should be rather easy.
>
> 	Archimides
> Not familiar with this.
>
> 	BRL-CAD
> Great, but probably not for what you're interested in. Its real focus is 3D
> simulation, not just drawings. With things like LibreCAD the control language
> (which is scheme-based in LibreCAD, very similar to AutoDesk's 2D) and the GUI
> tools are given equal weight. In BRL-CAD there is a gui, but its pretty obtuse
> compared to the absolute and fine control granted by writing in the control
> language. BRL-CAD is not a trivial system to get into; very steep learning
> curve with a very high payoff. More of a career descision than something you'd
> get rolling with over a weekend. This is the killer app for people interested
> in "3D simulations for engineering, not art".
>
> 	OpenSCAD
> Another great 3D tool, but whereas BRL-CAD excels at simulation and is more
> complex for it, OpenSCAD is focused on making shapes and drawings and is
> accordingly simpler. It relies entirely on the control language, but is *much*
> easier to get started with than BRL-CAD. This one feel complicated at first,
> but it turns out to be something you can get working in a weekend. Most folks
> I know in the OpenSCAD community use it to create neat things to pass to 3D
> printers or creating very early prototype models. Its language has awkward
> areas (going back to a scheme-based language would do wonders here...) but its
> easy to get started on and there are loads of online examples, quick-start
> tutorials and shape libraries. If you need 3D this is where I would start (or
> Blender, see below).
>
> 	Blender
> If you're going the 3D route anyway and you want pretty colors and things, and
> you don't like the idea of being forced to learn a control language then this
> is probably your best bet. Camera perspective in a GUI drawing tool is always
> something annoying to mess with, but Blender has a surprising number of tricks
> available to make this easier -- but you won't discover them until you've made
> a few drawings and gotten used to the environment. This is sort of the killer
> app for people interested in "3D art, not simulations for engineering". I'm
> pretty sure this is in EPEL.
>
> Of the projects's I'm personally familiar with, LibreCAD probably suits your
> needs best. 3D is a whole new world of complexity that just doesn't tend to
> benefit people as much as the think, especially when the actual use-case is
> creating digital blueprints (as opposed to creating an ooh-aah game or movie
> scene -- which lacks any way to meter or measure for use by a worker on-site
> who need to know where to plant his shovel).
>
> There are other projects, these are just the ones you either mentioned or I am
> familiar with personally. Hope you find something useful!
>

Thank you!

What do you think of this spin?

http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/23356724/dir/redhat_el_6/com/librecad-2.0.0rc1.git20130625-2.1.x86_64.rpm.html