[Bf-committers] Blender for mechanical usage

[Mathias Panzenböck]

Early Ehlinger wrote:
> M. Bashir Al-Noimi wrote:
>> so i ask and suggest to you to expand special version of Blander for 
>> Mechanical usage, can we do that ?
> Blender is open source, so there's nothing to prevent you from doing 
> this other than time & skill.  I'd love to commit to doing this, b/c I 
> really enjoy drafting and haven't found a decent open-source tool to do 
> it with.  Unfortunately, I'm very bandwidth-constricted right now (read: 
> my plate is full), so I don't think I'll be able to contribute other 
> than in a requirements gathering capacity.  Hopefully somebody with 
> similar interests (perhaps you?) can lead the charge in getting 
> something written...
> 
> What features would you say are missing to make Blender usable as a 
> mechanical design tool?  I believe 95% of what's needed is already 
> there, so Blender represents a phenomenal starting point to produce such 
> a beast.  On my list would be the following (some of these may already 
> be there - let me know please!):
> 
> * real world units - metric/SI preferred for internal representation, 
> with conversion to/from US Standard (ft/inch) in the UI
> * numeric entry - "this item must be 2.3m long" - it'd be much better to 
> be able to type this in than rely on the grid.
> * import/export .DWG format.
> * a special "blueprint view", similar to AutoCAD's notion of paper space
> ** correctly scaled, printable view, with render to pdf, printer, etc.
> ** multiple pages
> ** add dimensions and other notation to a drawing
> ** easily insert cross sections of a model on a blueprint page
> 

A few ACAD things:
  * cut line at intersection point with other line.
  * snap object by its vert. A to vert. B (of a other object)
  * snap object to midpoint of a line

can someone think of more? It's a long time ago since I did something in ACAD (and we abused it in 
school to draw circuits).