[cad-linux] Re: .dxf or .dwg?

> The following was supposedly scribed by
> Sagar Behere
> on Thursday 21 August 2003 08:02 am:

>We are planning to make a gpl'ed cam software, working
>primarily on gnu/linux.
>
>Right now, we are thinking of accepting a .dxf or .dwg
>file as input and generating a g-code tool path.
>
At least support .dxf, and if possible, .dwg as well, but remember that 
neither has any real technical merit and they are only popular in terms of 
compatibility.  

>My question, which should be the preferred input
>format? .dxf or .dwg? I would also like to know that
>advantages and disadvantages of either of these, and,
>more importantly, the kind of libraries that are
>available for their manipulation...
>
There is the DIME .dxf library and a few others for .dxf.
For .dwg, you can either partner with AutoDesk or OpenDWG, but I don't know 
that you will be able to distribute binary gpl'd software in either of these 
cases.

>I saw the opendwg.org alliance and saw that they have
>some libraries that are designed to work with the .dwg
>format...however, linux is not mentioned in the OS
>platforms. Has anyone successfully used these
>libraries with linux?
Yes, these work fine with Linux and I have built a Perl module which uses 
them.  There is also a DWGViewer (written by another member of this list) 
which uses the libraries.  But you need to read carefully about the licensing 
if you want to be GPL.

More important (at least to me) than your file-format is your expandability.  
Definitely consider a tcl or Perl plugin interface.  Definitely forget about 
trying to provide drafting functionality, there are drafting programs that do 
that.

Also look at Qcad.  I believe this project has incorporated it's own dxf 
library (but realize that it is also tied to your non-gpl'd competition.)

And how about supporting an SQL database interface?

--Eric

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