[ale] BRL-CAD anyone?

[Horkan Smith]

+1 for interest, but I haven't spent any time on it at all....

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 01:46:43PM -0500, Charles Shapiro wrote:
> Anyone here familiar with BRL-CAD ( http://brlcad.org/ )  ? It's a pretty
> interesting 3d-modeling software suite which is designed specifically for
> CAD/CAM. That makes it different from and (I hope) better than things like
> Blender ( http://blender.org)  and Artofillusion ( http://artofillusion.org
> ) for designing printed objects. It's a pretty simple install on my Debian
> Jessie system. I haven't tried it on other distros. I believe it is
> available for proprietary OSs but that is outside my expertise.
> 
> This software was developed in the mid-'80's by the US Army, but only open
> sourced in 2004. Amusingly enough, Mike Muus, the guy who headed the
> development team, was also the first author of ping(1). The UI dates from
> 1984, the documentation also. The result of this is that it is a
> fantastically rich program with all kinds of nifty features accessed
> through a command line with a creaky GUI built on top of it. The doc
> devotes no less than 2 illustrations and 5 paragraphs to explain the zoom
> feature, but is notably silent on important concepts like vectors,
> vertices, and object trees. The web is also pretty silent on most specifics
> (e.g "How do I rotate a shape in BRL-CAD?"). The extensive built-in
> documentation often doesn't explain anything about command-line arguments
> beyond their existence and function.  A glossary would be a huge step
> forward for a n00b such as myself.
> 
> I had a small breakthrough in understanding  last night and succeeded in
> building a rough model of a "standard craft stick" (114.3 x 9.5 x 1.5 mm).
> It took me about 2 hours to grok some basic facts on how BRL-CAD works,
> partly because I lack strong background in 3D design and partly because the
> tutorial is heavily slanted toward buttonology.  The original GUI ("mged")
> seems to require a 3-button mouse, but a later iteration ("arrow") is more
> compatible with my current setup.The tutorial, of course, assumes the
> former.
> 
> Has anyone else tangled with this software? It seems really interesting but
> somewhat difficult. Mastering it might be a Useful Life Skill for a
> well-rounded 3D printing hacker.
> 
> Heck, at the very worst it might make an innaresting ALE talk?
> -- CHS

> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo


-- 
Horkan Smith
678-777-3263 cell, ale at horkan.net