[freearchitecture] mailing list traffic, interested persons, website

[Terry Hancock]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 14:45:59 -0500
Steve Hall <digitect at mindspring.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 2005-11-20 at 17:02 -0800, Eric Wilhelm wrote:
> > # from Terry Hancock on Sunday 20 November 2005 02:56
> > pm:
> > 
> > > It's clear there is interest in creating better
> > > free-software CAD tools, but it hasn't been really
> > > organized, as far as I can tell -- no project has
> > > really broken out and attracted a lot of attention.
> > 
> [snip]
> > 
> > The primary hurdle, as I see it, is the basic libraries
> > -- including both geometric functions and file-format
> > support.  There are just too many files out there in
> > existing formats for a new program to break into even
> > marginal usage without some import/export support. I've
> > seen many open-source half-starts where the "save/load"
> > operations are essentially a serialization of whatever
> > memory model the developer happened to be using.
> > 
> > The uber-converter is a plan to break out of that
> > pattern, and fortunately I have attracted some
> > sponsorship for this from Xara, but unfortunately, I
> > have not seen any funded interest come from the
> > architecture or engineering fields.
> 
> Eric, I agree with you. This is a valiant effort that will
> support all those that come after.
> 

> It's these thankless labors that make FS/OSS work and give
> me any hope of climbing out of this mess. Keep up the good
> work!

Do check out the work at the http://exff.org site --
creating a reliable, free-licensed, neutral exchange format
(and filters to convert to and from it), based on ISO-10303
(or at least a subset of it), is exactly what EXFF is about.

Any kind of FLOSS "uber-converter" project ought to at least
maintain contact with this project.  STEP compatibility
would provide the ability to interoperate with AutoCAD and
other commercial CAD programs, among other things.

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com