[Bf-funboard] Blender CAD?

[Roger]

  And I don't understand, when people say, Blender
> is dedicated to artists or mainly to animation artists. As an artist  
> I want to claim that art also needs accuracy. In architecture an design it this is
> obvious, but I think also of sculpturing (like in minimal art),  
> installation,


Automatic snap of the knife tool to the nearest vertex would for me, eliminate 
creating other sets of 2 or 3 vertices in very close proximity to a pre existing 
vertex. from which I wish to start cutting. I haven't tried the snap as yet but 
will in a couple of weeks or so.

I completely agree that artists need accuracy,  it's not my area of expertise, 
although I am starting to learn 3D sculpture on blender creating some characters 
my daughter's science fiction movie/ game series. I'm as slow as a wet week in 
this and my learning curve is steep.

There is / are significantly more and different things to consider in Cad 
although the basic modeling remains the same.
Cad needs to deal with things already in existence like windows, doors and 
sills/ frames for these. Roofs and walls in relation to floors and each other. 
Furniture placement, automatic stair generating, snapping doors and windows into 
walls where a wall know its relationship to a door or window.
Then there are the more basic requirements like standard building materials and 
their standard shapes, like timber planks  or an RSJ or RHS steel beam and 
things like plumbing pipes and electrical wiring and their architectural 
symbols. then bolts, screws, nuts, washers, rivets and the list goes on.
These form an intrinsic part of Cad and the designer doesn't want to design each 
and every component. I have these in TurboCad so IMSI must have  obtained them 
from somewhere I guess.

Bringing CAD to Blender needs a number of us to get together and start providing 
comprehensive standard materials lists and components so the developers don't 
have to work this in also.

I've had a look at all the current cad offerings in Linux and while all are cute 
and functional in some way or other they don't come close to Blender for 
universality. Floors, walls, roofs fascias etc can all be created from an 
appropriately positioned and sized plane object and extruded to length.
It would be tops to be able to extrude a plane or circle along a bezier line 
instead of having to create the appropriate bezier shape first.

Apologies for the length of this email

Off subject completely and I apologise for this after thought:
If someone could find a way of making Turbocad work in Linux without wine we 
could have a very comprehensive cad without the redevelopment.
Turbocad is given away free on Computer magazines once versions are 3-4 years old.
Roger