Discussion between joojaa and LateralTerminal

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18:19

1

Q: Create schematic with scale/rule in Blender

Preamble So that this doesn't get flagged as a "asking for specific tool/book/resource/etc is not a real question" (although the software-recommendation tag seems to suggest this site doesn't have the same rule on that as StackOverflow), I created a concrete question, with additional "for the co...

joojaa

Not really. also polygon modeling is not suited for this kinf of work. I mean you can do it but... forget using any better CAM, as you have no step support. Which also means your incompatible with standard mechanical cad files. So you can not just import parts from others. LibreXAD is a POS.

LateralTerminal

I noticed there is a Blender StackExchange. Can someone move this question there? I think they would better answer it. From my understanding of blender it can be used for almost anything!!! blender.stackexchange.com

I actually DO believe this can be accomplished very well in blender. Once you understand how to use blender. You would be surprised how many different unconventional ways blender is used in the industry.

joojaa

@LateralTerminal blender can achieve any image, but so can notepad, however blender has no real tools for many of the things.

LateralTerminal

@joojaa That's not exactly true anymore there are a lot of plugins to extend the functionality of blender. Even to the point of drafting houses. As DevNull descovered

joojaa

@DevNull unfortunately this is not a forum for cad tools. There are lots of things different cad tools do that blender does not.

@LateralTerminal Yes but can you export step files ;) Like i said it can do images, but cad programs do not build images. Inages are just the thing they used to do 20 years ago

LateralTerminal

18:19

@joojaa Not natively yet but you can export it to another program that can then export it to step. That's not ideal of course. But blender gets you started for free! It's good for just coming up with ideas that are scaled accurately.

joojaa

@LateralTerminal you can not, see blender files are generally polygons, you can not export polygons to a cad model. Its a bit like having bezier curves versus approximated lines. So in fact it will never work unless you discourage most of the benefit of what blender has.

LateralTerminal

@joojaa what about this? blendercam.blogspot.com

joojaa

@LateralTerminal yes i am aware of this.

LateralTerminal

It's still kind of new but it seems to be compatible with many CNC machines from what I've read

joojaa

Many low level cam tools in fact allow you to just process stl files

The problem is that some mechanical work is very very fine stuff.

Blender has no way to say that this edge is actually a ellipsoid, and can deviate from that ellipsoid from this rule by...

Likewise i can do everything i can do in blender in maya, and maya pretty much can do everything...

In realm of graphics.

However cad is more than that

DevNull

18:22

For just the sake of (quality) woodworking and 3d-printing schematics, would I be better off biting the bullet, and buying a windows + autodesk setup?

joojaa

Depends on what you need.

You can probably do everything you need in a text editor

DevNull

I don't follow.

I could use a text editor to code a POVRAY render of everything I need.

joojaa

Yes but you can actually make draft in a text editor on most operating systems and printers if you want to

DevNull

I'm mostly interested in printing out woodworking schematics others can use with hand-tools and power tools (no industrial fab), and 3d printing (would have to be sent off to a fab house).

What kind of draft are you proposing?

joojaa

In that case i would consider learning 2 tools

DevNull

18:25

I don't see how text or ascii art would be helpful for designing custom cabinets with custom-routed bevels.

What tools would those be?

joojaa

One 3d cad and blender

Or possibly just a 2d cad but those are pretty much extinct

DevNull

Are there any decent 3d cad tools for Linux? or is it pretty much maya/autodesk or Sketchup?

I was hoping to use one tool (i.e. sketchup) for all use cases, but preferred blender, since it's massive and FOSS.

joojaa

Mayas not a Cad tool its a DCC tool like blender

DevNull

oh.

What (preferably Linux) 3d cad tools would you recommend?

joojaa

Probably for you soldiedge or soldworks

DevNull

18:29

Haha, back to SolidWorks for me.

joojaa

But i think there is a version of NX on linux

NX may be overkill for you bot atleast it works on linux

DevNull

Should I maybe just drop blender and go solely for SolidWorks?

Last I checked, it can do cad/woodworking , AND 3d-printed toys/designs/chassis.

joojaa

Most cads can do

Anyway when i said you can do all of this in a text editor. But thats besides the point.

You need to use something your peers use

The image above is done with notepad, seriously no other tool was used to make it. It was rendered in any software capable to uderstand postscript

Including my printer, and os can usually do it. Word can do it if you install support packs.

This is after i modified the dimensions

If i were to care of images this would be fine, its better than blender and many cad tools.

Its free, i can run it on nearly any platform including my phone

But i am incompatible with others.

I can not push this into my simulation application to see what the objects natural frquency is

i can not send it to my CAM guy since its niot 3d and is miisng the datum info

I can not share it with my clients

and so on

DevNull

Oh, a latex-like tools

*tool

joojaa

If you only do stuff for web and dont care of others you can use whatever you want

Yes except ist just direct postscript

Drawing commands for printers if you may.

But way faster than latex in general

So if you never intend to go into working with others you can use whetever you want

For example i dont paricularily like using matlab

But if i work with others im pretty much forced to do so. As quite few people actually use modellica

@DevNull It may also be dangerous to ask this form blender users because they might never have used a cad application and can not understand why the annotation is not just an image

joojaa

18:56

Anyway im known for misusing tools, dont get me worng id use blender if i needed to do things that it would excell at, but woodworks isnt the thing.

DevNull

19:17

Well, if nothing else, I learned that Blender isn't a CAD tool today.

Thanks!

LateralTerminal

@joojaa Very interesting discussion. Did you really make all that in Notepad using knowledge of Postscript without any other tools?

joojaa

@LateralTerminal yes

@LateralTerminal you want the file

LateralTerminal

Yeah that's really impressive. I'm curious what it looks like!

joojaa

Its a bit messy since i want really good at structuring my code back then

LateralTerminal

I won't judge. It's impressive as it is!

joojaa

19:22

seems like my standard code shaing platform is down

LateralTerminal

Oh, that's too bad. How did you learn postscript language like that? Were there some steps you took to gain the knowledge to be able to do it manually like that?

@jooj

@joojaa

joojaa

%!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 1190.55 841.89
%%Title: Engineering Sheet A3
%%Creator: joojaa
%%CreationDate:  2013-11-03
%%EndComments


/title (Demo) def
/model (Demo) def
/mscale (1/1) def
%~/mscale (NA) def


/shownames false def
%~/shownames true def
%units in mm
/mm {2.83464567 mul} def
% parameters

/width 120 mm def
/w2 30 mm def
/w3 30 mm def

/height 60 mm def
/h2 50 mm def
/h3 30 mm def

/slot true def

/chamf 2 mm def
/rad 4 mm def

/cm {28.3464567 mul} def

% Page properties

Aww crap ill share it here

@LateralTerminal how did i learn? Well one day i decided i wanted to learn how to do something quickly in anew environment

So i decided to implement ean codes with only info on wikipedia, a postscript reference, printer and a ssh connection to a computer on my phone

just to make things a bit more interesting

Ive snice then aklso dona a font in notepad and so on

though i did eventually compile it in fontforge to an otf file

But as such PostScript is pretty easy all you do is write coordinates. But yes once you use functions it becomes a bit cryptic.

anyway to learn postscript just read atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~milanek/PostScript/Reference/REF.html

Its your standard stack language

DevNull

Thank you for this.

joojaa

19:40

@DevNull no prob

@LateralTerminal you can use the code for anything you wish but like i said i would probably do better today in structure

LateralTerminal

@joojaa That's really awesome!

joojaa

@LateralTerminal once you understand postscript you can wire pdf files by hand in no time

LateralTerminal

@joojaa That's very fascinating. I just tried to google how to push this to a printer but couldn't find anything. How do you send that postscript directly to a printer through USB? I guess in Windows

joojaa

@LateralTerminal its has to be a prostcript printer

you just use copy to copy the file over

or lpr

LateralTerminal

19:56

Oh so your typical $30 HP Inkjet printer won't support that I'm guessing?

@joojaa

joojaa

@LateralTerminal no but you can use ghostscript as a mediator if you wish

LateralTerminal

That's really cool. Do you just save the extension as .PS I'm guessing in Notepad?

joojaa

@LateralTerminal this is encapsulated so you can also try eps.

LateralTerminal

That's interesting. I'm going to try this tonight on my cheap $30 printer using what I read here answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/… That should be fun experiment.

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Discussion between joojaa and Lateral…