[cad-linux] Re: database cad system

On Sun 22-Jun-2003 at 01:16:07AM -0500, Eric Wilhelm wrote:
> 
> More of this for anyone that has been missing it: 

I'm new to this list, so apologies if I'm going to repeat stuff
that's been said before..

> I've been crazy busy with work and it looks like I will continue
> this way for quite some time now but I think I will be working
> toward the database-connected cad system on future projects.

What problems are you trying to solve with a database?

CAD information doesn't appear to be a good fit; drawings are
generally made up of quite complex nested object information - This
kind of data is hard to cram into a relational database.

A relational database is good for fast searches and random access to
data - Neither of which are going to be particularly useful here.

> It looks like the networked database would be the way to set this
> up in future projects, except for the problem that everything
> graphical is so mired in autocad and file-based methodology.

I share your frustration with the existing "stuff everything in a
big binary file" strategy adopted by AutoCAD; but if you are not
careful, you will just end-up recreating this with MySQL (which also
stuffs everything in big binary files).

Looking from my perspective, CAD data isn't repetitive information
like an address-book; a closer analogy is with software source-code,
where duplication is a Bad Thing - You wouldn't dream of putting
your source into a database would you?

> I'm planning to look into openCascade in the near future, but the
> first step will be getting the perl wrapper for the dwg toolkit
> released.

Oo, yes please, I could think of lots of uses for this wrapper.

-- 
Bruno

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