Hello Robert, First thanks a lot for answering, makes me feel good to see active users of a product I pick up for learning :)
What you write makes sense. It took me a while to find out that there was a “sed” command, almost by chance, but then googling for it made me find https://brlcad.org/wiki/Changing_the_properties_of_primitive_objects <https://brlcad.org/wiki/Changing_the_properties_of_primitive_objects>, and so on. I was able to use it yesterday to select a solid and scale it and move it. This was good. The approach you point out sounds interesting as well! I shall play with it. Thanks for sharing the ability to script things using the source command. I had seen an example of someone piping commands to populate a database but I didn’t know about the ‘source’… Information seems good on some subjects and hard to find in others. Some of the ‘help’ texts on commands are very cryptic and isolated (commands sometimes need to be used in combination but the help does not tell you that, such as “sed -> sca -> accept”), but it is what it is and I’m sure it will get easier for me with time. Luckily there is a list like this and people like you to help us newbies! Is there a reverse of source where the steps to produce a database be output to a file? On your question: I’m not a profesional designer, but a hobby fabricator/inventor and from time to time it makes sense to put some ideas in CAD before doing it on the metal. I have never picked up a tool deeply, have only superficially used a few, and I would love to pick up one that I can develop better skills for… I love how PovRay scene building works, but it can’t easily be used for CAD as far as I’ve seen and don’t seem to have some advanced tools for design checking like materials and geometry checking that (i’ve no idea how to use) BRL-CAD has.. Anyways, thanks a lot for your answer, it was illuminating! I’m sure I’ll come back with more questions once I start building some parts I need to make… Take care! > On Nov 1, 2016, at 7:11 AM, Bob Anderson <bob.ander...@survice.com> wrote: > > Hello Alexander, > > I’ve been using BRL-CAD now for 19 years and can tell you that it is very > good at some things and very poor at other things. One thing it does not do > very well it continuous curved surfaces. I usually build those in something > more parametric like solidworks, save them as an STL file, and then import to > BRL-CAD. So if you are looking to model the body panels of a Lamborghini > Veyron, BRL-CAD is not your tool. > > That said, everything in the GUI can be done from the command line, however I > found using a combination of command and mouse is the most efficient. The > easiest way to start is by typing a ? at the command line and pressing enter. > This provides a list of all the commands that are available. Some have > obvious names while others you just learn by doing. There were some tutorials > in the past when the GUI was not as robust as it is now that I used to learn > to build individual solids that may still exist somewhere. > > Solid editing is a fairly simple thing. The sed command will put you in solid > edit mode from the command window. Add the solid name as an argument and you > can begin editing. If no argument is used, you must use the mouse to scroll > through all the solids in that are currently in view. If the pointer is at > the very bottom of the graphics window it will select the first solid that > was brought up, if at the top of the window it will select the last solid. > Everything in between can be selected in the order that they were brought > into view. Select the desired solid using the center mouse button. This is > tedious if there are a lot of things on the screen, and if a particular solid > appears more than once you will get a “multiply referenced” error when using > sed which forces the use of the mouse to select the solid. > > Once a solid is selected, you can expand the menu on the left side of the > screen If you see no window, press F7 to toggle it on. Each of the options > in this menu can be selected at the command line using the Press command > followed by the full menu option name. If there are spaces you will need > quotes around the name. I prefer to just grab the mouse and click the option > and then come back to the command window to enter the values. For example, > if I wanted to change radius A of a sphere to 1 inch, after selecting the > sphere to edit, I would select with the mouse “Edit A” from the menu and the > come back and type “p 1”. Really the only time I use the Press command is to > press the accept button to accept any changes I made or if I am doing some > scripting. BRL-CAD allows commands to be placed in a text file and then be > sourced in using the source command. This sometimes requires the selection > of a menu option where “Press” becomes important. > > I hope I didn’t overload you, and you can certainly ask questions if you get > stuck. May I ask what you intend to use BRL-CAD for? Another option that may > be easy to learn, although requiring more mouse use than keyboard is google > sketchup. There’s a free version that I used to model my entire house and it > was perfect for that. > > Enjoy! > > Robet Anderson > <> > From: Alexander Wallace [mailto:alexander.o.wall...@gmail.com] > Sent: Monday, October 31, 2016 7:19 PM > To: brlcad-users@lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: [brlcad-users] Hello and Mged command-line vs GUI. > > Hello All, > > Hope you're doing great. > > I've been recently trying to choose an opensource CAD software to pick an > learn sort of deeply (as much as required) and I'm a big fan of they keyboard > more than the mouse. > > BRL-CAD definitely looks powerful to do what I need and a lot more, but have > a few questions, perhaps a little bit of concern. > > I've been going through the tutorials and at some point they start combining > the use of the GUI with the command line in a way that makes me wonder if the > command line lacks means to do things that are done in the GUI, I then have > to spend a good amount of time to find out the commands to do what is being > shown with the GUI and it is sometimes hard to find. > > For example, entering Edit Mode for a Shape. I spend maybe an hour and found > the equivalent (sed) by almost pure chance. > > I would like to do most if not all the editing using the command line in MGED > but I'm finding it very hard to find examples/documentation on how to use > commands not covered in the tutorials. > > For instance, can someone point me to a doc, or help me understand how to do > a full Edit cycle with sed? I mean, once I type sed and the shape's name, how > to use the commands (like translate, scale, etc) to modify the desired > attributes and then apply the changes? > > The biggest concern right now: Will I be able to find documentation, > examples, help, for BRL-CAD? I am almost certain it has all the power I could > ever want, but will I be able to figure out what I need? I can certainly look > at the code but it will take me ages that way probably. > > Thanks to all for keeping such a great project alive. I hope I can find the > answers I need as I would very much lie to embrace it. > > Thanks! > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Developer Access Program for Intel Xeon Phi Processors > Access to Intel Xeon Phi processor-based developer platforms. > With one year of Intel Parallel Studio XE. > Training and support from Colfax. > Order your platform today. > http://sdm.link/xeonphi_______________________________________________ > <http://sdm.link/xeonphi_______________________________________________> > BRL-CAD Users mailing list > brlcad-users@lists.sourceforge.net <mailto:brlcad-users@lists.sourceforge.net> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/brlcad-users > <https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/brlcad-users>
signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Developer Access Program for Intel Xeon Phi Processors Access to Intel Xeon Phi processor-based developer platforms. With one year of Intel Parallel Studio XE. Training and support from Colfax. Order your platform today. http://sdm.link/xeonphi
_______________________________________________ BRL-CAD Users mailing list brlcad-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/brlcad-users
