On 8/22/2012 6:04 PM, dave wrote: > On Wed, 2012-08-22 at 11:54 -0400, Kent A. Reed wrote: >> On 8/22/2012 2:43 AM, Marcus Bowman wrote: >>> I would be interested to know if there are any really good free 3D packages >>> for Mac, PC or Linux. Something as capable as Inventor or SolidWorks. >> Marcus: >> >> I started creating a list of my own last spring. I got interrupted by >> family health problems before I could assess all of these. The following >> is my running list. I make no claim that it is complete nor than any >> <...> > Kent: > > I did notice that apt360 is not on that list. Certainly not easy to use > but capable. > > On a slightly different tack ... during the development of IGES was APT > ever considered as a adequate description of a solid? > > Just had to poke. ;-) > > I'm certainly glad that some the the health problems have moderated. > > Dave >
Oof! You got me fair and square. All I can claim in my defense is that I last updated the list before the apt360 discussion got serious. No, the IGES folks looked at APT as a postprocessing problem. Cast your mind back to the late 1970s. CAD systems captured static geometric models. Virtually no parametric capability existed yet; no sensible notion of geometric constraint. The notion of a CSG model defined through primitives and operations was barely on the horizon. The APT view of the world was completely foreign. Even now, a number of common CAD modeling practices would be difficult to implement in an APT world. Suppose one wanted to know some dimension between features on a modeled part. In an APT world, one would have to process enough of the program to determine the two edges/surfaces of the features of interest. Imagine trying to design with a constraint established on that dimension, the way one can with most of the shrink-wrapped PC modelling packages today. Regards, Kent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
