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In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Aaron Duerksen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This is something that's been bugging me for a while, but since MLCAD is free
> software and very useful even without this feature, I haven't made much of a
> fuss about it. However, I thought I'd throw it out here so others can comment
> on it and so Mike L. can pick it up and implement it if he wants to.
>
> A little background:
> I like to build (and therefore draw) complex mechanical contraptions that
> require lots of odd angles to make the pins line up. My latest one, for
> example, is a pneumatic train locomotive with working (not just decorative)
> Walschaerts valve gear. To draw something like this accurately, I currently
> have to:
> 1. Select all the parts that make up a push-pull link, starting with the pin
> that is already lined up (or set the rotation point manually)
> 2. Zoom in on the other end of the link, which is not lined up yet
> 3. Rotate by sub-degree increments until it's "close enough"
> 4. Do this again with the lever that it's supposed to attach to
> 5. Add some more parts and repeat
> 6. Guess at how it's going to work in real life
>
> My idea:
> Add a feature to MLCAD that would allow me to:
> 1. Define the link as a physical unit (however that's done)
> 2. Attach one end of the link (however that's done)
> 3. Attach the other end of the link (however that's done)
> 4. Add some more parts and repeat
> 5. Move any part (rotate the wheels in my example) and see exactly how it's
> going to work (or at least catch some of the bigger bugs)
> Basically, it's a motion simulator.
>
> For what I need right now, simply joining pairs of parts at user-defined points
> (relative to each part, not the origin) is good enough. More points would make
> a more rigid connection. The simulator would then move any part(s)
> automatically to satisfy all such points in the model. Eventually, I'd like to
> simulate gears and other parts that aren't always connected at the same
> point(s), but let's keep it simple for now.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Thanks,
> Aaron
That would be a great enhencement for MLCad and it should be possible. But I do
not know how many hours Michael L. has to spend for that.
If you want to try another application please try SR3DBuilder. As fas as I can
see the required feature is exacly what that app does.
Here the link to that app http://staff.polito.it/sergio.reano/
cu
mikeheide
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In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Michael Heidemann wrote:
> If you want to try another application please try SR3DBuilder. As fas as I can
> see the required feature is exacly what that app does.
> Here the link to that app http://staff.polito.it/sergio.reano/
>
> cu
> mikeheide
Wow! I think you're right! SR3DBuilder looks exactly like what I'm looking
for...except I'm on Ubuntu Linux and it doesn't work in Wine, where MLCAD is
flawless. I asked Sergio about this through his website, so I'll see what he
says.
Thanks Mike!
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In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Aaron Duerksen wrote:
> In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Michael Heidemann wrote:
> > If you want to try another application please try SR3DBuilder. As fas as I can
> > see the required feature is exacly what that app does.
> > Here the link to that app http://staff.polito.it/sergio.reano/
> >
> > cu
> > mikeheide
>
> Wow! I think you're right! SR3DBuilder looks exactly like what I'm looking
> for...except I'm on Ubuntu Linux and it doesn't work in Wine, where MLCAD is
> flawless. I asked Sergio about this through his website, so I'll see what he
> says.
>
> Thanks Mike!
Well, after a long discussion with Sergio via e-mail and a period of trying
different things, it appears that SR3DBuilder will only run (both now and in the
future) on a native installation of Windows (not even a virtual machine) that
has a fairly recent version of Microsoft's .NET framework and DirectX. It also
needs a video card that supports that version of DirectX. Any old machine that
you pull out of the closet and set up in the play room will not work.
The installer displays an error message and exits if it doesn't find the .NET
framework, and the program crashes on startup (displays Windows' standard
"encountered a problem and needs to close" message) if it doesn't find the
DirectX software or a video card that supports it. There is a debug version as
well, but it does the same thing.
There is another program that Sergio suggested, called LD4DStudio. It does run
in Wine, but most of its interconnections seem to be based on user-written
scripts. Yes, it would work, but it seems like a lot more work than necessary.
So unless someone can prove me wrong, it looks like I'm back to requesting these
features in MLCAD.
Thanks,
Aaron
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In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Aaron Duerksen wrote:
> unless someone can prove me wrong, it looks like I'm back to requesting
> these features in MLCAD.
You could try to track down a copy of leoCAM. Maybe that'll do it.
Or perhaps some of the leoCAM features have migrated back into leocad?
I don't know, but it might be worth a look.
Good luck,
Don
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In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Don Heyse wrote:
> In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Aaron Duerksen wrote:
> > unless someone can prove me wrong, it looks like I'm back to requesting
> > these features in MLCAD.
>
> You could try to track down a copy of leoCAM. Maybe that'll do it.
> Or perhaps some of the leoCAM features have migrated back into leocad?
> I don't know, but it might be worth a look.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Don
LeoCAM had a really rudimentary "snap-to" functionality added to LeoCAD. It
didn't work entirely well, and was never entirely completed (as it was an
academic proof, rather than an actual attempt to create a functionality).
The sources have been captured, but none of it has migrated to LeoCAD yet.
(I'm speaking to this because I spent some time to try to encourage migration of
the functionality to LeoCAD, and was also lined up to help the translation
efforts of the manual to better english. Since the source became very difficult
to get ahold of online, and Leonardo wanted to add the same functionality to
LeoCAD but in a different way, I let it drop).
-- joshua
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In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Don Heyse wrote:
> In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Aaron Duerksen wrote:
> > unless someone can prove me wrong, it looks like I'm back to requesting
> > these features in MLCAD.
>
> You could try to track down a copy of leoCAM. Maybe that'll do it.
> Or perhaps some of the leoCAM features have migrated back into leocad?
> I don't know, but it might be worth a look.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Don
Well, it's been a while since I've checked, and now there's a forum dedicated to
SR3DBuilder, which looks like the best solution by far to what I'm looking for.
It still doesn't run on Linux, but that is exactly one of the topics on the
forum:
http://sr3d.spoonclan.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11
Maybe that'll come to something?
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