<div style="white-space:pre-wrap">If you blog about that, please let us know!</div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 5:03 PM Charles Shapiro <<a href="mailto:hooterpincher@gmail.com">hooterpincher@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_msg"><div class="gmail_msg">After a pretty decent struggle, I designed my first object with BRL-CAD last week. It's a 6-hour print, and I am currently on about hour 4. So far, so good!<br class="gmail_msg"><br class="gmail_msg"></div>-- CHS<br class="gmail_msg"></div><div class="gmail_extra gmail_msg"><br class="gmail_msg"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_msg">On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 2:25 PM, Horkan Smith <span dir="ltr" class="gmail_msg"><<a href="mailto:ale@horkan.net" class="gmail_msg" target="_blank">ale@horkan.net</a>></span> wrote:<br class="gmail_msg"><blockquote class="gmail_quote gmail_msg" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">+1 for interest, but I haven't spent any time on it at all....<br class="gmail_msg">
<div class="gmail_msg"><div class="m_-1708593686943331297h5 gmail_msg"><br class="gmail_msg">
On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 01:46:43PM -0500, Charles Shapiro wrote:<br class="gmail_msg">
> Anyone here familiar with BRL-CAD ( <a href="http://brlcad.org/" rel="noreferrer" class="gmail_msg" target="_blank">http://brlcad.org/</a> ) ? It's a pretty<br class="gmail_msg">
> interesting 3d-modeling software suite which is designed specifically for<br class="gmail_msg">
> CAD/CAM. That makes it different from and (I hope) better than things like<br class="gmail_msg">
> Blender ( <a href="http://blender.org" rel="noreferrer" class="gmail_msg" target="_blank">http://blender.org</a>) and Artofillusion ( <a href="http://artofillusion.org" rel="noreferrer" class="gmail_msg" target="_blank">http://artofillusion.org</a><br class="gmail_msg">
> ) for designing printed objects. It's a pretty simple install on my Debian<br class="gmail_msg">
> Jessie system. I haven't tried it on other distros. I believe it is<br class="gmail_msg">
> available for proprietary OSs but that is outside my expertise.<br class="gmail_msg">
><br class="gmail_msg">
> This software was developed in the mid-'80's by the US Army, but only open<br class="gmail_msg">
> sourced in 2004. Amusingly enough, Mike Muus, the guy who headed the<br class="gmail_msg">
> development team, was also the first author of ping(1). The UI dates from<br class="gmail_msg">
> 1984, the documentation also. The result of this is that it is a<br class="gmail_msg">
> fantastically rich program with all kinds of nifty features accessed<br class="gmail_msg">
> through a command line with a creaky GUI built on top of it. The doc<br class="gmail_msg">
> devotes no less than 2 illustrations and 5 paragraphs to explain the zoom<br class="gmail_msg">
> feature, but is notably silent on important concepts like vectors,<br class="gmail_msg">
> vertices, and object trees. The web is also pretty silent on most specifics<br class="gmail_msg">
> (e.g "How do I rotate a shape in BRL-CAD?"). The extensive built-in<br class="gmail_msg">
> documentation often doesn't explain anything about command-line arguments<br class="gmail_msg">
> beyond their existence and function. A glossary would be a huge step<br class="gmail_msg">
> forward for a n00b such as myself.<br class="gmail_msg">
><br class="gmail_msg">
> I had a small breakthrough in understanding last night and succeeded in<br class="gmail_msg">
> building a rough model of a "standard craft stick" (114.3 x 9.5 x 1.5 mm).<br class="gmail_msg">
> It took me about 2 hours to grok some basic facts on how BRL-CAD works,<br class="gmail_msg">
> partly because I lack strong background in 3D design and partly because the<br class="gmail_msg">
> tutorial is heavily slanted toward buttonology. The original GUI ("mged")<br class="gmail_msg">
> seems to require a 3-button mouse, but a later iteration ("arrow") is more<br class="gmail_msg">
> compatible with my current setup.The tutorial, of course, assumes the<br class="gmail_msg">
> former.<br class="gmail_msg">
><br class="gmail_msg">
> Has anyone else tangled with this software? It seems really interesting but<br class="gmail_msg">
> somewhat difficult. Mastering it might be a Useful Life Skill for a<br class="gmail_msg">
> well-rounded 3D printing hacker.<br class="gmail_msg">
><br class="gmail_msg">
> Heck, at the very worst it might make an innaresting ALE talk?<br class="gmail_msg">
> -- CHS<br class="gmail_msg">
<br class="gmail_msg">
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<br class="gmail_msg">
--<br class="gmail_msg">
Horkan Smith<br class="gmail_msg">
<a href="tel:678-777-3263" value="+16787773263" class="gmail_msg" target="_blank">678-777-3263</a> cell, <a href="mailto:ale@horkan.net" class="gmail_msg" target="_blank">ale@horkan.net</a><br class="gmail_msg">
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