Newsgroups: alt.cad,comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!dynacon
From: dynacon@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Wayne Sincarsin)
Subject: Looking For CAD Software
Message-ID: <C3sBsG.7LH@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 16:43:28 GMT
Lines: 45


I am involved in a robotics project that requires a CAD software component.
The people working on this project have  relatively little experience with
CAD software, and we would rather acquire existing software rather than
develop it in-house. I am posting this message to request information about
the availability of such software; please reply by E-mail, and if there is
sufficient interest I'll summarize the responses and post them here.

The CAD software must have the following characteristics:

  o It must run on a Sun Sparc 2 under Open Windows.
    What we imagine might be available is a mouse-driven
    X-windows application that would show plan, side and
    elevation views of an object as it is being constructed,
    as well as perspective views after construction.
  o It must allow the user to create 3D models of objects,
    using surface modelling (rather than volume modelling).
  o The objects in question are polyhedral, and may be
    concave. They may have surface markings (typically polygonal
    patterns) of different colours; the software should allow
    the user to specify these. The ability to model curves
    is of interest to us (e.g. to model circular holes), but
    we're not sure that we'll be able to use curve data
    in the world modeller and controller that will be driven by the CAD
    models.
  o The software must be able to export (ie. output) the
    model data for an object in a portable format, hopefully
    a simple format. A good format for us would be an ASCII
    file containing lists of vertices, edges and surfaces, with
    tags indicating the colour of each surface.

We are interested in commercial CAD software which meets these
specs. However, we don't need an "all-singing all-dancing" CAD package;
our search so far has found several CAD packages for Suns that do far
more than we need, and that cost a lot more than we can afford to spend.
A price under $5000 would seem reasonable, depending on the capabilities of
the product.

We are also interested in any such public-domain CAD software that might be
available over the net, if it is available with documentation. Pointers to
such software, or to archives that might contain such software would be
appreciated. Software that doesn't quite meet the specs would be of interest
is its source code was available.

Thanks in advance!
