Hi All,
Moderators, this might not be in the right place (I'm new ) so could you move it if need be?
I have been using blender for a while now and after the whole shock of the unique user interface, I find it to be amazingly simple to use. So much so that I actually don't want to switch to other programs! I can't help but think "this is so dumb, its better in blender" when I use other software packages. The problem is, I'm trying to design and build a race car using blender. The body design is real easy, blender was made to do artwork and thats what a body design is. However, the chassis is turning into a monster since there is very little in the way of CAD functionality in Blender. I know for a fact that blender would make a perfect basic CAD package for any hobbiest, and I have also read every post I can find on making Blender more CAD capable. Today after trying out Alibre Design, and looking at VariCAD, I think its time someone at least tried to seriously add some CAD features to blender. There are a few features of CAD programs that even the Blender artists would find conveniant. Since I'm almost done my degree in Computer Science and I REALLY want to be able to build this race car before I die, I'm going to give it my best shot! But I need some help from you guys and gals.

Things I need before I start:
1. What would be the Ideal development environment. What are the main developers using in terms of hardware/software. Should I develop blender in a Linux environment or Windows? Do I need a dedicated computer, or can my regular desktop do the deed?
2. I know there is a documentation project going on right now, so should I refer to the documentation for developing something like this, or is the current documentation not detailed enough? Should I be trying to find contacts within the blender community to help if its not detailed enough?
3 Last but not least. If I develop the CAD stuff as a plugin, can plugins override main features embeded in the system. One of the CAD functionalities is to have a point, or edge, or face stay in one position relative to another face/edge/point. Can a plugin allow for this constraint, or do I need to build the code into the main program? Also, where would you suggest I look for answeres to questions as weird as these?

If there is anyone else out there with a programming background that might want to help me out? Help would be nice!
Sory for the long post.....

Mark

Renegade_racer wrote:

Things I need before I start: 1. What would be the Ideal development environment. What are the main developers using in terms of hardware/software. Should I develop blender in a Linux environment or Windows? Do I need a dedicated computer, or can my regular desktop do the deed? 2. I know there is a documentation project going on right now, so should I refer to the documentation for developing something like this, or is the current documentation not detailed enough? Should I be trying to find contacts within the blender community to help if its not detailed enough? 3 Last but not least. If I develop the CAD stuff as a plugin, can plugins override main features embeded in the system. One of the CAD functionalities is to have a point, or edge, or face stay in one position relative to another face/edge/point. Can a plugin allow for this constraint, or do I need to build the code into the main program? Also, where would you suggest I look for answeres to questions as weird as these? If there is anyone else out there with a programming background that might want to help me out? Help would be nice! Sory for the long post..... Mark

You really need to be a little more specific with what you want it to do. For instance if your currently a student go to google and search for the autocad student site and get the student version of the inventor software they have. It's may very well be a great bassis to give you ideas as to what you want the blender software to do. Secondly I'm currently an engineering student, mechanical, and almost done with my degree so I could lend some help in that lane. So here's my list of questions that may help get closer to what you need to know and or want out of it.

1. What do you want it to do "exactly?" That is to say what features do you want? The ability to assymbol the parts to gether to see how they fit to one another? The ability to see what kind of forces are involved to require what size bolt's etc...
2. Have you tried going to the auto cad part of your school(if they have one and see if they have inventor or proE)?


Again, it's really a matter of narrowing down "exactly" what you want out of the software. You have given at least one detail as far as the parts surfaces/faces being "bound" to one another but that really was about it.
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What mean you my engrish no well???

Hi Mark,
I've only just started with Blender myself but I come from an AutoCAD background and I customise it using ARX (C/C++/C#) and spend most of my dev time with 3d solid editing/modeling etc.

Blender is quite good from what I've learned so far, a bit 'clunky' for CAD sketching but with a few scripts I think you can add some sketching tools that make things a bit easier and quicker for CAD type work. The modeling should be easy enough from there I think.

A good tut I have been working through that brings out the more CAD oriented tools/techniques is here if you haven't seen it - http://www.rab3d.com/index.html
This guy has done an excellent job bringing forward how to draw and model acurately in Blender (thanks Robert!).

I'm working my way through the Beginner and then Advanced tut's to get a good feel for the tools at hand, I think it would be a lot easier to customise what's there than start from scratch but it must be lerned first!

From where I'm at now I would like to see some 2d sketching tools such as fillet (from 0-whatever radius), chamfer, mirror and trim/extend for starters. There is a way to 'snap' using the cursor but again it's a bit clunky for CAD work, some snap abilities would also be good.
These may already be implemented somewhere(?) but if not I'm willing to have a go at implementing them when I find time.

My favourite thing about Blender is the Python scripting interface, for mine I like just 2 languages - C and Python (that should answer your platform and dev env q's )and they work very well together! If you can get something going in Python, 'if' it needs speeding up you can then port it to a C extension or build it into Blender proper.

Just my 2c but if a few of us want to get together, experienced users or not (but you can't beat experience ) I'm sure we could get something going.
cheers,
Mick.

After Blender 2.5 I think the idea is to look into adding a Architecture Mode or CAD Mode as part of the customization of the new interface code.

1. As development environment I use mainly Windows, since I'm also the Windows platform maintainer and release builder, but I do also use Linux (in a virtual box) to ensure my changes work in the two environments. The computers I use are by no means dedicated, both the laptos and desktops I use.
2. This forum and #blendercoders IRC-channel on the Freenode network are the places to get your information. Don't forget about the bf-committers mailing list either (https://projects.blender.org - you'll see it if you look in the right place).
3. Currently there's no way to plugin that kind of functionality other than through spacehandlers, which means python scripts in Blender. This is probably not the optimal way to do it, but with this you should be able to override some of the existing UI functionality, and extend it with your own. See the Python API documentation for that (hint: go to download section).

/Nathan (core developer)
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Planet Blender | BlenderStorm | #blender.fi | Letwory Interactive

MickD wrote:

Hi Mark, Just my 2c but if a few of us want to get together, experienced users or not (but you can't beat experience ) I'm sure we could get something going. cheers, Mick.

Heck i wouldn't mind throwing out some stuff to add GOOD AutoCAD style feature in it. Personally I'd prefer to "mimic" inventor because it's interface is much more user friendly than CAD's command line enter face. But I curretnly have a very strong math background and am not afraid of it ^.^ as I have almost completed my associates of engineering. Currently I'm getting a firm grasp on C++ for my game engine I'm trying to throw together. I could offer a strong math side to the whole mix to add the stress testing part in.
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What mean you my engrish no well???

I find the timing of this thread to be impeccable...

I am the project lead for development of just such an integration of Blender and CAD tools for the company I work for. As a user of Blender, it seems a natural progression to add mechanical design process features to such a flexible system.

We are attempting to combine the Blender architecture into a mechanical design framework for simulation, pre-processing and post-process visualization. As the economy dried my half-mill budget to only a mere couple grand, open source is the way forward. We plan to develop tools and release what developments we can to the public community.

To address a few of the earlier questions...

1) We will be hosting our development off a linux server with subversion. From there, since we have to focus on Windows code first, we will be using MSVisual 2005 or newer with tortoise SVN source browser. Compiling will take place on local desktops for now. Machines are Win XP 32-bit and Win XP 64-bit. (And opensuse 10.3 and 11.1)

2) Documentation is (and isn't) helpful...depends on what information and level you are seeking. I have my developers pouring through the source code itself to best understand the program structure. I find the user documentation helpful for determining which features are present and which would need modified.

3) We are looking at developing the CAD features directly in, in C. Plugins are helpful for flexibility, but in my experience with custom design systems, performance issues can become a hastle with interpreted languages.

On a further note, features we identified that would be useful are drawn from traditional CAD approaches. I'd like to stick to modern solid body methods, but the mindset is 2D and extrusion. I am thinking of generating a tool set to allow creating planes, sketching and extruding into bodies. (Pro/E, Inventor, etc... are adopting this approach).

Since blender is NURBS based, I may forgo 2D sketching and force a paradigm in our group. But, some tools will be handy. To address exact interests, here is what was identified (bear in mind, a traditional approach to model design)

Line tools (2pts, given angle, parallel at distance, tangent from 2 circles, orthogonal, etc).

Arc (center w/ point and angle, 3 pt arc, etc)

Circle (center and 1 pt, center and radius, center w/ 2 opposite points, etc)

Snap tools (endpoint, midpoint, tangent, etc)

Face (from 3 lines, from n lines)

Just to name a few.

I am developing a feature list at this time...anyone wishing to add insight or input would be more than welcome to. If our group finds it would aid in our project, I will add it to our development.[/list]
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-- Techmoose007
"Freedom to create is truly living free."

Some of the CAD functionality that is desired is already present, but not easily accessed by the end user. The above tutorials from http://www.rab3d.com go over some of these functions, but in a non-direct method. One goal of our development will be bringing some of these functions to the user space with one-click simplicity. (Example...creating a vertex)
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-- Techmoose007
"Freedom to create is truly living free."

Make sure you guys follow the Blender 2.5 development. It may help your work on CAD stuff.

/Nathan
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Planet Blender | BlenderStorm | #blender.fi | Letwory Interactive

jesterKing wrote:

After Blender 2.5 I think the idea is to look into adding a Architecture Mode or CAD Mode as part of the customization of the new interface code.

Hello everyone new guy here...

That sounds really nice! jesterKing when would you guess an "CAD Mode" will become included in some downloadable version of blender? (Or an alpha/beta...) Are we talking half a year or more like over a year?

I have just started out with blender and if it could get some kind of Architecture Mode it would make it more complete! imho

[quote="techmoose007"]
I am developing a feature list at this time...anyone wishing to add insight or input would be more than welcome to. If our group finds it would aid in our project, I will add it to our development.[/list][/quote]

Hope it's not too far gone for me to add something like this:

My fiancee is an architect, but not an open-source enthusiast like myself. Part of the reason for that is that she desperately needs AutoCAD to do her job...

As i've learned from watching and listening to her and her colleagues, the development of B.I.M. programs that integrate with CAD programs is imperative to continued development within the industry.

BIM = Building Information Modeling, which boils down to every wall and fixture and window has a set of properties that describe its total energy costs... from source to lifetime consumption/loss.

She's regularly rebuffed my calls for her to switch to open-ource by falling back on her software requirements... if there were BIM tools in BlenderCAD, she might find more interest. In this case, her interest would be a metaphor for the interest of many other architects.

Hi, I posted in this thread a while ago when I was googleing for blender + CAD. Today I did it again to see if there where any news on this front and found this tread again. I also found an other one that was very interesting and that I would like people who come to this thread (searching for blender + CAD) to check out!

For all you people check out this link:

http://projects.blender.org/forum/message.php?msg_id=165527

Best Regards, Robert