[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: Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:22:27 -0400
On Apr 4, 2010, at 7:27 PM, Eric Wilhelm wrote:
> Yeah, that doesn't exactly make it accessible. Imagine if the IETF
> worked like that.
Most ISO standards are not available for free, but you also don't
have to be accessible to be very effective/pervasive. Some notable
examples: C, C++, C#, PDF, MPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, UML, ODF, OOXML, ...
Yeah, they're not all "winners", but they're certainly recognized
with plenty of accessible implementations even if their specification
was not. I see STEP a lot like PNG in that what is really needed is
a good "libpng" (i.e., libstep) that hides most of the complexity
from user applications. We've started on such a project for BRL-CAD
using the NIST SCL effort as a starting point (and already now have a
functioning alpha importer).
> One could say the same for Latin as a file format. If you're having
> trouble precisely and accurately exporting a design in Latin, it's not
> Latin's fault (import is also left as an exercise for the reader.)
Tis a good analogy. It might not be my favorite language or a simple
language (express), but STEP is sufficiently expressive and wouldn't
be too hard at all if there is a good free translation service (a
library). Especially considering that the alternatives usually
proposed are some obscure new language altogether or worse, a
language that lacks the vocabulary for the wide breadth of domain uses.
A good library would take care of the other problems you mention.
Back to the original poster's remark about available standards for
2D, it's worth pointing out that CGM is/was exactly that (and an ISO
standard at that!) before it was replaced in prevalent use by SVG and
DXF. There's a format that could probably be dusted off and amended
as another option forward specific to 2D geometry.
Cheers!
Sean
Other related posts:
