[freearchitecture] Blender-Developments

[Steve Hall]

On Tue, 2006-05-02 at 08:49 +0200, Lars Grobe wrote:
> > > <sigh> I wish there was a way to combine PythonCAD and Blender.
> > > Both use Python, and both have elements that architects need.
> 
> I think that is the point, the big advantage in oss is that it is
> easier to agree on interoperability (many propietary cad projects
> are weak in that because they want to avoid concurrent
> installations). If we could get some kind of frame that projects
> could agree to fit into, the typical problem that in commercial cad,
> as soon as you leave one app you lose informations, would not have
> to be true for free software. It could even be a standard to allow
> apps to act as plug-ins for others...?

Perhaps this has already been discussed, but I realized that in order
to do this your frame needs another overlay: time. It would have to
manage not just the various conversion "vectors" but also each
vector's *version*.

If I'm designing a new CAD software, not only is my file format
changing, but also the vector I'm making to the hub. But it seems that
the hub would always be developing faster than any one project, since
it has to react to each vector. But I need the hub to stand still for
a development cycle and be stable for any particular release I may
have. At the same time, I may also want another version available to
match a third app on the same host.

This is all solved if the hub presents access to versions like a CVS
tree. It would even be conceivable that two versions could talk to
each other if the system could determine no obstacles existed for my
particular file. But more usefully, the frame could be installed and
updated without damaging any particular application since each is
accessing portions that aren't changing with the update. I'd think
that would be the only way you'd ever get a group of developers to
agree to use it.


-- 
Steve Hall  [ digitect mindspring com ]
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