[cad-linux] Re: 2D drawings- was Re: Any suggestions about free hosting sites for a CAD symbol library?
- From: Christopher Sean Morrison <brlcad@xxxxxxx>
- To: cad-linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2010 09:44:31 -0400
On Apr 3, 2010, at 10:23 PM, Yorik van Havre wrote:
> What about step? I find it pretty hard to have a good idea of the step
> format...
> It looks like a perfect candidate, it can have complex hierarchy,
> scripted
> objects, it
> is in ascii text format, so it works well with version control
> systems.
> Maybe it is just too complicated?
I like to refer to STEP as "the union of all CAD formats". STEP is a
perfect candidate and does have support for pretty much any geometric
representation, 2D or 3D. You're right, though, that it is a complex
format. I wouldn't say it's "too complicated", but it is certainly
more than most people care to understand as the format covers all
domain purposing. Someone focusing on just their particular niche
invariably ends up abandoning other purposes.
That complexity is further encumbered by the licensing fees that ISO
charges. Like the ISO spec for C/C++, you can't just openly share
the actual specification, you have to buy it. We obtained 6 or 7 of
the core application protocols for BRL-CAD several years ago and it
costs a couple thousand $'s (USD).
The upside, though, is that pretty much every major vendor supports
import and export of STEP. If something doesn't import/export, it's
pretty much guaranteed to be a failure or limitation of that
software, not of STEP itself. That said, it's still a complex format
to implement support for as you end up needing to wade through a sea
of entity types that you're willing to support.
Cheers!
Sean
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