FreeCAD
FreeCAD is a free and open-source general-purpose parametric 3D CAD modeler and a building information modeling software with finite-element-method support. FreeCAD is intended for mechanical engineering product design but expands to a wider range of uses around engineering, such as architecture or electrical engineering. Users can not only interact with this software. FreeCAD is in a beta stage of development. FreeCAD features tools similar to Autodesk Revit, CATIA, Autodesk Inventor, SolidWorks or Solid Edge, therefore falls into the category of Building Info Modeling, Mechanical computer-aided design, PLM, CAx and CAE, it is intended to be a feature-based parametric modeler with a modular software architecture, which makes it easy to provide additional functionality without modifying the core system. As with many modern 3D CAD modelers, it will have a 2D component to facilitate 3D-to-2D drawing conversion. Under its current state, direct 2D drawing is not the focus for this software, neither are animation or 3D model manipulation.
However, the modular nature of FreeCAD will allow the user to adapt its workflow for such environments. FreeCAD is intended to make use of other open-source libraries from the field of scientific computing. Among them are Open CASCADE, Coin3D, the Qt GUI framework, Python, a popular scripting language. FreeCAD itself can be used as a library by other programs. There are moves to take FreeCAD into the architecture and construction sector and add building information modeling functionality with the Arch Module. Freecad's own main file format is FreeCAD Standard file format, it is a standard zip file. Document.xml file has all parametric objects definitions. GuiDocument.xml has visual representation details of objects. Other files include brep-files for objects and thumbnail of drawing. Besides FreeCAD's own file format, files can be exported and imported in the following file formats: DXF, SVG, STEP, IGES, STL, OBJ, DAE, SCAD, IV and IFC. FreeCAD's support for the important DWG file format has been problematic due to software license compatibility problems with the GNU LibreDWG library.
The GNU LibreDWG library started as a real free alternative to the source-available OpenDWG library and is licensed under the GPLv3. As FreeCAD has dependencies on Open Cascade, which prior to version 6.7.0 was only compatible with GPLv2, it couldn't use the GNU LibreDWG library as GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible. Open CASCADE technologies were contacted by Debian team in 2009, 2012 got a reply that Open CASCADE technologies was considering dual-licensing OCCT, however they postponed that move. A request went to the FSF to relicense GNU LibreDWG as GPLv2 or LGPLv3, rejected; as of the 2014 the 0.14 release of FreeCAD, including the new LGPL release of Open Cascade, the BSD-licensed version of Coin3D, the removal of PyQT, FreeCAD is now GPL-free. However, LibreDWG has not been adopted. FreeCAD is able to export a limited subset of the DWG format via the Teigha Converter. GitHub Files section SourceForge Files section SourceForge Old Files section Open CASCADE Technology Open-source software Comparison of CAD editors Parametric modeling and Constructive solid geometry and Boundary representation Falck, Daniel.
Solid Modeling with the Power of Python, Packt Publishing, Birmingham, ISBN 978-1-84951-886-4. Official website
Canada
Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Canada's southern border with the United States is the world's longest bi-national land border, its capital is Ottawa, its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land area being dominated by forest and tundra, its population is urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, many near the southern border. Canada's climate varies across its vast area, ranging from arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons. Various indigenous peoples have inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Beginning in the 16th century and French expeditions explored, settled, along the Atlantic coast.
As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces; this began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with Elizabeth II as its queen and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the federal cabinet and head of government; the country is a realm within the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie and bilingual at the federal level. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, education.
It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. A developed country, Canada has the sixteenth-highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the twelfth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index, its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada is part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the etymological origins of Canada, the name is now accepted as coming from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement".
In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona. Cartier used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village but to the entire area subject to Donnacona. From the 16th to the early 18th century "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the Saint Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named the Canadas. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the legal name for the new country at the London Conference, the word Dominion was conferred as the country's title. By the 1950s, the term Dominion of Canada was no longer used by the United Kingdom, which considered Canada a "Realm of the Commonwealth"; the government of Louis St. Laurent ended the practice of using'Dominion' in the Statutes of Canada in 1951. In 1982, the passage of the Canada Act, bringing the Constitution of Canada under Canadian control, referred only to Canada, that year the name of the national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day.
The term Dominion was used to distinguish the federal government from the provinces, though after the Second World War the term federal had replaced dominion. Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada include the First Nations, Métis, the last being a mixed-blood people who originated in the mid-17th century when First Nations and Inuit people married European settlers; the term "Aboriginal" as a collective noun is a specific term of art used in some legal documents, including the Constitution Act 1982. The first inhabitants of North America are hypothesized to have migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 14,000 years ago; the Paleo-Indian archeological sites at Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are two of the oldest sites of human habitation in Canada. The characteristics of Canadian indigenous societies included permanent settlements, complex societal hierarchies, trading networks; some of these cultures had collapsed by the time European explorers arrived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and have only been discovered through archeological investigations.
The indigenous population at the time of the first European settlements is estimated to have been between 200,000
SolveSpace
SolveSpace is a free libre and open source 2D and 3D CAD program. It is a constraint-based parametric modeler with simple mechanical simulation capabilities. Version 2.1 onward runs on Windows and macOS. It is developed by a community of volunteers. Applications include: Modeling 3D parts – Draw with extrudes and Boolean operations Modeling 2D parts – Draw the part as a single section, export as a DXF, PDF or SVG. Files to open need to be in its own text-based SolveSpace Models format. Various export formats are provided, including 2D vector drawing as DXF, EPS, PDF, SVG, HPGL, STEP. A brief review and interview with the developer appeared in Libre Graphics World; this review praises SolveSpace for its small executable file size, its advanced constraints solver and range of output formats. The same review notes some drawbacks its slow and limited processing of NURBS booleans and lack of native Linux support. However, native Linux support has since been added. A third-party video demonstration by Chris Madsen for an earlier version of SolveSpace is available on YouTube as Using SolveSpace to draw Sonex flap detent.
A series of SolveSpace video tutorials has been produced by Eric Buijs. Further tutorials are available on the SolveSpace website. A previous software package called SketchFlat developed by Westhues, has been replaced by SolveSpace. List of computer-aided design editors for architecture and construction Comparison of CAD editors for CAE Official website solvespace on GitHub
BRL-CAD
BRL-CAD is a constructive solid geometry solid modeling computer-aided design system. It includes an interactive geometry editor, ray tracing support for graphics rendering and geometric analysis, computer network distributed framebuffer support, image-processing and signal-processing tools; the entire package is distributed in binary form. Although BRL-CAD can be used for a variety of engineering and graphics applications, the package's primary purpose continues to be the support of ballistic and electromagnetic analyses. In keeping with the Unix philosophy of developing independent tools to perform single, specific tasks and linking the tools together in a package, BRL-CAD is a collection of libraries and utilities that work together to create and interrogate geometry and manipulate files and data. In contrast to many other 3D modelling applications, BRL-CAD uses CSG rather than boundary representation; this means BRL-CAD can "study physical phenomena such as ballistic penetration and thermal, radiative and other types of transport" It does support boundary representation.
The BRL-CAD libraries are designed for the geometric modeler who wants to tinker with software and design custom tools. Each library is designed for a specific purpose: creating and raytracing geometry, image handling; the application side of BRL-CAD offers a number of tools and utilities that are concerned with geometric conversion, image format conversion, command-line-oriented image manipulation. In 1979, the U. S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory – now the United States Army Research Laboratory – expressed a need for tools that could assist with the computer simulation and engineering analysis of combat vehicle systems and environments; when no CAD package was found to be adequate for this purpose, BRL software developers – led by Mike Muuss – began assembling a suite of utilities capable of interactively displaying and interrogating geometric models. This suite became known as BRL-CAD. Development on BRL-CAD as a package subsequently began in 1983. BRL-CAD became an open-source project in December 2004.
The BRL-CAD source code repository is the oldest known public version-controlled codebase in the world that's still under active development, dating back to 1983-12-16 00:10:31 UTC. PLaSM - Programming Language of Solid Modeling Comparison of CAD editors Official website BRL-CAD on SourceForge.net
Siemens
Siemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Berlin and Munich and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the company are Industry, Energy and Infrastructure & Cities, which represent the main activities of the company; the company is a prominent maker of medical diagnostics equipment and its medical health-care division, which generates about 12 percent of the company's total sales, is its second-most profitable unit, after the industrial automation division. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. Siemens and its subsidiaries employ 379,000 people worldwide and reported global revenue of around €83 billion in 2018 according to its earnings release. Siemens & Halske was founded by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske on 12 October 1847. Based on the telegraph, their invention used a needle to point to the sequence of letters, instead of using Morse code; the company called Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske, opened its first workshop on 12 October.
In 1848, the company built the first long-distance telegraph line in Europe. In 1850, the founder's younger brother, Carl Wilhelm Siemens Sir William Siemens, started to represent the company in London; the London agency became a branch office in 1858. In the 1850s, the company was involved in building long distance telegraph networks in Russia. In 1855, a company branch headed by another brother, Carl Heinrich von Siemens, opened in St Petersburg, Russia. In 1867, Siemens completed the monumental Indo-European telegraph line stretching over 11,000 km from London to Calcutta. In 1867, Werner von Siemens described a dynamo without permanent magnets. A similar system was independently invented by Charles Wheatstone, but Siemens became the first company to build such devices. In 1881, a Siemens AC Alternator driven by a watermill was used to power the world's first electric street lighting in the town of Godalming, United Kingdom; the company diversified into electric trains and light bulbs. In 1887, it opened its first office in Japan.
In 1890, the founder retired and left running the company to his brother Carl and sons Arnold and Wilhelm. Siemens & Halske was incorporated in 1897, merged parts of its activities with Schuckert & Co. Nuremberg in 1903 to become Siemens-Schuckert. In 1907, Siemens had 34,324 employees and was the seventh-largest company in the German empire by number of employees. In 1919, S & H and two other companies jointly formed the Osram lightbulb company. During the 1920s and 1930s, S & H started to manufacture radios, television sets, electron microscopes. In 1932, Gebbert & Schall, Phönix AG and Siemens-Reiniger-Veifa mbH merged to form the Siemens-Reiniger-Werke AG, the third of the so-called parent companies that merged in 1966 to form the present-day Siemens AG. In the 1920s, Siemens constructed the Ardnacrusha Hydro Power station on the River Shannon in the Irish Free State, it was a world first for its design; the company is remembered for its desire to raise the wages of its under-paid workers only to be overruled by the Cumann na nGaedheal government.
Siemens exploited the forced labour of deported people in extermination camps. The company owned a plant in Auschwitz concentration camp. During the final years of World War II, numerous plants and factories in Berlin and other major cities were destroyed by Allied air raids. To prevent further losses, manufacturing was therefore moved to alternative places and regions not affected by the air war; the goal was to secure continued production of important everyday goods. According to records, Siemens was operating 400 alternative or relocated manufacturing plants at the end of 1944 and in early 1945. In 1972, Siemens sued German satirist F. C. Delius for his satirical history of the company, Unsere Siemenswelt, it was determined much of the book contained false claims although the trial itself publicized Siemens' history in Nazi Germany; the company supplied electrical parts to Nazi concentration camps and death camps. The factories had poor working conditions, where death were common; the scholarship has shown that the camp factories were created and supplied by the SS, in conjunction with company officials, sometimes high-level officials.
Siemens businessman and Nazi Party member John Rabe is, credited with saving many Chinese lives during the infamous Nanking Massacre. He toured Germany lecturing on the atrocities committed by Japanese forces in Nanking. In the 1950s, from their new base in Bavaria, S&H started to manufacture computers, semiconductor devices, washing machines, pacemakers. In 1966, Siemens & Halske, Siemens-Schuckertwerke and Siemens-Reiniger-Werke merged to form Siemens AG. In 1969, Siemens formed Kraftwerk Union with AEG by pooling their nuclear power businesses; the company's first digital telephone exchange was produced in 1980. In 1988, Siemens and GEC acquired the UK technology company Plessey. Plessey's holdings were split, Siemens took over the avionics and traffic control businesses—as Siemens Plessey. In 1985, Siemens bought Allis-Chalmers' interest in the partnership company Siemens-Allis which supplied electrical control equipment, it was incorporated into Siemens' Energy and Automation division. In 1987, Siemens reintegrated
Computer-aided design
Computer-aided design is the use of computers to aid in the creation, analysis, or optimization of a design. CAD software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, to create a database for manufacturing. CAD output is in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations; the term CADD is used. Its use in designing electronic systems is known as electronic design automation. In mechanical design it is known as mechanical design automation or computer-aided drafting, which includes the process of creating a technical drawing with the use of computer software. CAD software for mechanical design uses either vector-based graphics to depict the objects of traditional drafting, or may produce raster graphics showing the overall appearance of designed objects. However, it involves more than just shapes; as in the manual drafting of technical and engineering drawings, the output of CAD must convey information, such as materials, processes and tolerances, according to application-specific conventions.
CAD may be used to design figures in two-dimensional space. CAD is an important industrial art extensively used in many applications, including automotive and aerospace industries and architectural design and many more. CAD is widely used to produce computer animation for special effects in movies and technical manuals called DCC digital content creation; the modern ubiquity and power of computers means that perfume bottles and shampoo dispensers are designed using techniques unheard of by engineers of the 1960s. Because of its enormous economic importance, CAD has been a major driving force for research in computational geometry, computer graphics, discrete differential geometry; the design of geometric models for object shapes, in particular, is called computer-aided geometric design. Starting around the mid 1960s, with the IBM Drafting System, computer-aided design systems began to provide more capability than just an ability to reproduce manual drafting with electronic drafting, the cost-benefit for companies to switch to CAD became apparent.
The benefits of CAD systems over manual drafting are the capabilities one takes for granted from computer systems today. CAD provided the designer with the ability to perform engineering calculations. During this transition, calculations were still performed either by hand or by those individuals who could run computer programs. CAD was a revolutionary change in the engineering industry, where draftsmen and engineering roles begin to merge, it did not eliminate departments, as much as it merged departments and empowered draftsman and engineers. CAD is an example of the pervasive effect. Current computer-aided design software packages range from 2D vector-based drafting systems to 3D solid and surface modelers. Modern CAD packages can frequently allow rotations in three dimensions, allowing viewing of a designed object from any desired angle from the inside looking out; some CAD software is capable of dynamic mathematical modeling. CAD technology is used in the design of tools and machinery and in the drafting and design of all types of buildings, from small residential types to the largest commercial and industrial structures.
CAD is used for detailed engineering of 3D models or 2D drawings of physical components, but it is used throughout the engineering process from conceptual design and layout of products, through strength and dynamic analysis of assemblies to definition of manufacturing methods of components. It can be used to design objects such as jewelry, appliances, etc. Furthermore, many CAD applications now offer advanced rendering and animation capabilities so engineers can better visualize their product designs. 4D BIM is a type of virtual construction engineering simulation incorporating time or schedule related information for project management. CAD has become an important technology within the scope of computer-aided technologies, with benefits such as lower product development costs and a shortened design cycle. CAD enables designers to layout and develop work on screen, print it out and save it for future editing, saving time on their drawings. Computer-aided design is one of the many tools used by engineers and designers and is used in many ways depending on the profession of the user and the type of software in question.
CAD is one part of the whole digital product development activity within the product lifecycle management processes, as such is used together with other tools, which are either integrated modules or stand-alone products, such as: Computer-aided engineering and finite element analysis Computer-aided manufacturing including instructions to computer numerical control machines Photorealistic rendering and motion simulation. Document management and revision control using product data management. CAD is used for the accurate creation of photo simulations that are required in the preparation of environmental impact reports, in which computer-aided designs of intended buildings are superimposed into photographs of existing environments to represent what that locale will be like, where the proposed facilities are allowed to be built. Pote
CATIA
CATIA is a multi-platform software suite for computer-aided design, computer-aided manufacturing, computer-aided engineering, PLM and 3D, developed by the French company Dassault Systèmes. CATIA started as an in-house development in 1977 by French aircraft manufacturer AVIONS MARCEL DASSAULT, at that time customer of the CADAM software to develop Dassault's Mirage fighter jet, it was adopted by the aerospace, automotive and other industries. Named CATI, it was renamed CATIA in 1981 when Dassault created a subsidiary to develop and sell the software and signed a non-exclusive distribution agreement with IBM. In 1984, the Boeing Company chose CATIA V2 as its main 3D CAD tool. In 1988, CATIA V3 was ported from mainframe computers to Unix. In 1990, General Dynamics Electric Boat Corp chose CATIA as its main 3D CAD tool to design the U. S. Navy's Virginia class submarine. Lockheed was selling its CADAM system worldwide through the channel of IBM since 1978. In 1992, CADAM was purchased from IBM, the next year CATIA CADAM V4 was published.
In 1996, it was ported from one to four Unix operating systems, including IBM AIX, Silicon Graphics IRIX, Sun Microsystems SunOS, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX. In 1998, V5 was released and was an rewritten version of CATIA with support for UNIX, Windows NT and Windows XP. In the years prior to 2000, problems caused by incompatibility between versions of CATIA led to $6.1B in additional costs due to years of project delays in production of the Airbus A380. In 2008, Dassault Systèmes released CATIA V6. While the server can run on Microsoft Windows, Linux or AIX, client support for any operating system other than Microsoft Windows was dropped. In November 2010, Dassault Systèmes launched CATIA V6R2011x, the latest release of its PLM2.0 platform, while continuing to support and improve its CATIA V5 software. In June 2011, Dassault Systèmes launched V6 R2012. In 2012, Dassault Systèmes launched V6 2013x. In 2014, Dassault Systèmes launched 3DEXPERIENCE Platform R2014x and CATIA on the Cloud, a cloud version of its software.
Referred to as a 3D Product Lifecycle Management software suite, CATIA supports multiple stages of product development, including conceptualization, design and manufacturing. CATIA facilitates collaborative engineering across disciplines around its 3DEXPERIENCE platform, including surfacing & shape design, electrical and electronic systems design, mechanical engineering and systems engineering. CATIA facilitates the design of electronic and distributed systems such as fluid and HVAC systems, all the way to the production of documentation for manufacturing. CATIA enables the creation of 3D parts, from 2D sketches, composites, forged or tooling parts up to the definition of mechanical assemblies; the software provides advanced technologies for mechanical surfacing & BIW. It provides tools to complete product definition, including functional tolerances as well as kinematics definition. CATIA provides a wide range of applications for tooling design, for both generic tooling and mold & die. In the case of Aerospace engineering an additional module named the aerospace sheetmetal design offers the user combine the capabilities of generative sheetmetal design and generative surface design.
CATIA offers a solution to shape design, surfacing workflow and visualization to create and validate complex innovative shapes from industrial design to Class-A surfacing with the ICEM surfacing technologies. CATIA supports multiple stages of product design whether started from 2D sketches; the CATIA Systems Engineering solution delivers a unique open and extensible systems engineering development platform that integrates the cross-discipline modeling, simulation and business process support needed for developing complex ‘cyber-physical’ products. It enables organizations to evaluate requests for changes or develop new products or system variants utilizing a unified performance based systems engineering approach; the solution addresses the Model Based Systems Engineering needs of users developing today’s smart products and systems and comprises the following elements: Requirements Engineering, Systems Architecture Modeling, Systems Behavior Modeling & Simulation, Configuration Management & Lifecycle Traceability, Automotive Embedded Systems Development and Industrial Automation Systems Development.
CATIA uses the open Modelica language in both CATIA Dynamic Behavior Modeling and Dymola, to and model and simulate the behavior of complex systems that span multiple engineering discipline. CATIA & Dymola are further extended by through the availability of a number of industry and domain specific Modelica libraries that enable user to model and simulate a wide range of complex systems – ranging from automotive vehicle dynamics through to aircraft flight dynamics. CATIA v5 offers a solution to formulate the design and manufacturing of electrical systems spanning the complete process from conceptual design through to manufacturing. Capabilities include requirements capture, electrical schematic definition, interactive 3D routing of both wire harnesses and industrial cable solutions through to the production of detailed manufacturing documents including form boards. CATIA v5 offers a solution to facilitate the design and manufacturing of routed systems including tubing, Heating, Ventilating & Air Conditioning.
Capabilities include requirements
