The collected works of GeneratriX - Page 6

Dubhthach wrote: Like most irish people i'll cheer for who ever is playing against england .... :lol:


Then you must be enjoyed these famous goal from Maradona! ;) :lol:
sincil wrote: Yeah, great goal from the big fat cokehead :P


:lol: ...And do you have realized that as a major injury, he performed such thing in such fashion premeditatedly and with firm purpose? :shock: ...I can't imagine how angered could feel a U.K. originary about this thing, but also, I could not imagine about someone else enabled to perform it SO WELL! ;)

No hard feelings, keep it pacefully; we are all good friends! :)
I'm very curious too... so, anyone has any kind of HOWTO for 5Dwm? :roll:

...I'm thinking to install these Beta2 thing on my few PeeCee/Linux boxes now (while I manage to make the transition from my 600MHz/O2 to some bigger IRIX box), so I'll not feel so alien'ish those crappy PC boxes... :)

I've not downloaded the 5Dwm Beta2 yet, so no idea if/how it works...
nekonoko wrote:
Easier to have a clean build environment this way; won't get any stray static linked mips4 libraries in the mix. Plus I just don't have spare mips4 machines anymore; just my Fuel (which I do mips4 development on; would have all sorts of conflicts while creating a mips3 distro there) and my O300 which I'd rather not waste cycles on.

Besides, it's not the compile time that's a problem - the Indigo R4K does just fine. It's wrestling with the compile problems that the patches just don't address - I don't have much time to rediscover solutions to the issues the original package creators also went through (and should have added in the release notes/patches!) :)


I'm hundreed percent with you, Neko; nothing works so perfectly as just get the builds done on the same platform that you want to target... and again, I think you're 100% right: the one porting/developing can't have too much spare time to rediscover solutions to side-troubles! ;)

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nekonoko wrote:
GeneratriX wrote:
I'm hundreed percent with you, Neko; nothing works so perfectly as just get the builds done on the same platform that you want to target


Yep, learned that the hard way ... neko_gcc comes to mind :D


Well, me too... :oops: ...None of the cross-compilings that I've attempted worked enough successfully to justify the amount of extra headaches/time of doing the things in such way.

I'm not saying that it is not possible to do; but at least for me, it is plainly an unuseful practice, given the extra amount of time needed to arrange a give box to get those nice&clean cross-builds.
Greetz to Pleasanton! ;)
Diego

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josehill wrote:
foetz wrote:
josehill wrote: Of course, it has some serious gaps in a few areas like USB

who cares? oh and there are usb keyboards and mice :D

I do, a little bit. :wink:

It would be nice to be able to buy a common USB2 card, slap it into any PCI SGI box (like an O2, or even an O2K, not just the more recent machines), and then connect one or two $250 500 GB USB2 drives and have them work without having to sacrifice a goat first, rather than pay the same amount for a 73 GB SCA drive.

I prefer using SCSI drives for servers and critical applications, but for certain uses, it would be great to have a reasonable, cheap USB storage option, especially on older hardware.

foetz wrote:
josehill wrote: , Firewire

dm10.

Sure, but poking around in other Nekochan threads reveals caveats about one chipset or another, things that work on Tezro or Fuel but are more, um, complex on other systems, and so on. No doubt it's great for some, but Firewire is one of those things that should "just work."


I'm very happy with IRIX, and I guess I'm lately more qualified to do it than before, after about two months trying the newest alternative open source OS variations for X86. Then I was able to notice how well designed and built IRIX is, no matter if it is compared to any of the self called "Latest Generation" OS(s).

Anyway, I can't avoid to agree with JoseHill on the two above points. We need fully supported IEEE-1394 and USB buses, with wider support for any kind of device, and free of worries on smaller platforms too (O2?) :?

But well, I'm also a lot happy to see a new Overlays release! ;)
hamei wrote: I'm putting a lot of hope into this kurobox thingy for mundane tasks


Well, it is not bad at all, considering the fact that it will go for about U$D160.- ...cheap enough! ...Just thinking: I've paided about U$D90.- about a year ago here in my city for my red and unuseful DM10 clone (Adaptec 4300B)... :roll:
schleusel wrote:
neko_xcdroast-0.98alpha15.tardist GUI frontend for the cdrtools.


Hello Schleusel, what is the package/release for neko_gdk_pixbuf.sw.lib which you're actually using as dependency on neko_xcdroast-0.98alpha15.tardist? ...It seems that I can't find the right tardist here.
Thanks a lot by your nice work, regards,
Diego

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schleusel wrote:
GeneratriX wrote:
Hello Schleusel, what is the package/release for neko_gdk_pixbuf.sw.lib which you're actually using as dependency on neko_xcdroast-0.98alpha15.tardist? ...It seems that I can't find the right tardist here.


oups, sorry, i fixed that prereq now.. I should finally learn not to keep package versions installed that never got uploaded :-)


Oh, thanks a lot Timo!; now everything has sense again. I was browsing fast to find these package! :P ...I'll download the new package to try again. What should be the first server having it uploaded?
Regards,
Diego

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schleusel wrote:
GeneratriX wrote:
I'll download the new package to try again. What should be the first server having it uploaded?


it is on nekochan already. The first mirror to have it will likeley be dexter's (tudelft.nl). All the other mirrors sync off that one i think. Not sure how often dexter syncs currently.. twice a day?


Cool!; thanks again by the nice stuff to work! Greetz,
Diego

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squeen wrote:
Placed neko_dia-0.95 into /beta. It has whiter's new neko_perl_xml dependancy.

Still looking into the rqs issue...as well as xft.


Cool!; I'm a big fan and user for Dia!; Thanks a lot! ;)

About libxft: ...last night I've experienced some weird behavior on Mozilla Composer. After edited some simple HTML page, the characters appears to be corrupted at one floating window (Create Link), and the whole content at the main Composer window appeared to be with some paragraphs randomly deleted. I've saved these file with a different filename, to close Composer. Once I've re-opened Composer, opened these new file, and everything was there, no randomly deleted paragraphs, and no problems at all.

So, my question is: -Since Mozilla depends on the same libxft which already brings problems to FLTK/Fluid; are we facing here the same troubles?

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I've upgraded my 600MHz/O2 this morning to IRIX 6.5.30 and everything works as expected or even better. After the upgrade process, I've noticed that my built-in CDROM on the O2 started to work fine again. These drive was zombie by latest three months, and in fact I've acquired another spare CDROM to replace it at any time, but never replaced it by lazyness... :P

Now it works fine again! 8) ...Thank you all, IRIX guys at SGI! ;)

Code: Select all

uname -aR
IRIX IRIS 6.5 6.5.30m 07202013 IP32
nekonoko wrote:
Let me know if there are any others.


neko_fltk-1.1.7-xft.tardist is perfectly stable, and ready to work; already tested building about a dozen and half different sources, and never meet a problem.

On the other hand, neko_fltk-1.1.7+xft.tardist does not works as intended, either using the older/newer libxft on nekoware. The weird thing is, it works perfectly if built agains SGI Freeware libxft.

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nekonoko wrote:
GeneratriX wrote:
nekonoko wrote:
Let me know if there are any others.


neko_fltk-1.1.7-xft.tardist is perfectly stable, and ready to work; already tested building about a dozen and half different sources, and never meet a problem.

On the other hand, neko_fltk-1.1.7+xft.tardist does not works as intended, either using the older/newer libxft on nekoware. The weird thing is, it works perfectly if built agains SGI Freeware libxft.


That's cool and all, but I'm not moving these over until we get a unified version ;)


Sure. Actually we need to have a revised libxft before to reach such stage, since it seems to be producing some crashes at Mozilla too... :?

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squeen wrote:
Do you know what would be awesome...a wrapper to the "install" command that (when invoked by gmake install) would autiomagically create the file databased used by inst. I know it would have issues (i.e. Makefiles that by pass install and do cp/mv commands instead), but wouldn't that be awesome---if install actually installed packages in a managable database at the end of the build. Tardist building would be a no brainer.


Indeed!; In fact I've wondered at some point if such tool was already present on Nekoware under any strangeous name! :) ...You know, there is such big amount of packages there, that many times I have to check to see what I'm installing! :P

Yup; Nekoware is growing up fast, we have a huge amount of tools already available here, which makes me think if it is not time to bring alive a brand-new company just building Godson-based MIPS/IRIX clones! :shock:

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whiter wrote:
squeen wrote:
Do you know what would be awesome...a wrapper to the "install" command that (when invoked by gmake install) would autiomagically create the file databased used by inst. I know it would have issues (i.e. Makefiles that by pass install and do cp/mv commands instead), but wouldn't that be awesome---if install actually installed packages in a managable database at the end of the build. Tardist building would be a no brainer.


I actualy wrote a tool that did exactly that a while ago.

Cool thing was: it caught anything you did (copy, chown, mv, ...) and secretly put the stuff in /usr/nekoware_dev instead of /usr/nekoware without make (or any other tool) knowing about it :)

Oh I LOVE rld override :)

Problem is that I lost most of it and would need to rewrite a shitload again :S


I knew it! :P ...The idea sounded me too familiar! ...So, the script was "AutoPackager", or "Pre Requisites Generator"? ...Because I've saved both on CDROM for any future eventual need! ;)

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whiter wrote:
GeneratriX wrote:
I knew it! :P ...The idea sounded me too familiar! ...So, the script was "AutoPackager", or "Pre Requisites Generator"? ...Because I've saved both on CDROM for any future eventual need! ;)


The version I 'shipped' didn't have the override code with it. But that's what I was working on, yeah.
I'll see if I can dig it up again.


Cool!
Anyway, and for the record, it seems that at least one of the two above mentioned packages is a son of you (AutoPackager), since it holds your name on the Guidelines Document! :P

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Neko; if you want, you can move the neko_fltk-1.1.7+xft.tardist definitively to '/obsolete' now, since I've exhausted here all my tests with these release, and it will not work without some serious changes on libXft, libxrender, and lately, on fltk-1.1.7 too.

On the other hand, and if you don't bother by the AA fonts, neko_fltk-1.1.7-xft.tardist is still working perfectly with all the rest of nekoware.

Anyway, right now, and just for the sake of the completitude I'm working on a newer fltk-1.1.X release including AA fonts with the actual neko_libXft. Well see...
nekonoko wrote: Okay, what I did is this - renamed neko_fltk-1.1.7-xft.tardist to neko_fltk-1.1.7.tardist and moved to /current.


Sure; it will replace perfectly the previous neko_fltk-1.1.rc2.tardist, adding some interesting features and fixing lots of bugs.

nekonoko wrote: Renamed neko_fltk-1.1.7+xft.tardist to neko_fltk-1.1.7-xft.tardist and moved to /obsolete;


Well, if you want because archival reasons it is fine... but you can remove these tardist if you want, since it is definitively broken, it will not work at all. :P

...In fact I'm already working since a few hours to have a version supporting fonts with antialiasing parting from the newer fltk-1.1.7-r5357 , which already fix a few minor bugs over the release that you moved today to /current (which was already blessed with all my tests here)... but, anyway this new r5357 is not ready to go yet, and I guess I'll have to work a little bit more before to have an stable neko_ release to share.

nekonoko wrote: the script that outputs dependancy/md5sum chokes on the plus sign and I think the dash works well as an indicator that it includes xft support.


...ahhh, then it was the plus sign, I've wondered a little about that. Good to know; I'll avoid "plusses" on middle of names next time! :)

nekonoko wrote: On that note - any feedback on other packages to move to /current? We've received quite a number in the past two weeks :)


Well, I have now all the /beta packages already installed on my box, and I've launched at least three times the ones with a GUI, and all of them started very well... no further tests beyond that... :)

The only ones which seems to want to make me difficult the life... :)

neko_gimp-2.2.12.tardist (which bombs out as soon I open an image)
neko_mozilla-1.8a5.tardist (which bombs out randomly)

BTW: ...I also have neko_dia-0.95.tardist installed, which seems to work just fine... so, is there any major bug of which I was not awared of, I mean, it was removed from nekoware?

Well, just my quickly "before-to-sleep" list! :)
nekonoko wrote: That one opens up images fine here ...


...mmmhhh, I'll check those GIMP's messages next time to post them here.

nekonoko wrote: ... and that one's not in beta :)


Touche'! :lol: ...Yeah, Mozilla is not in beta! :)

squeen wrote: What were the error messages on gimp & mozilla. I bet it's the same old glib memory mangling...really need to get to the bottom of that once and for all.


Well, some of them are posted here...

squeen wrote: I'm glad to hear dia-0.95 was working for you. It starting throw glib memory errors as well until I recompiled it against the newer version. I'll try to repackage it next week. Unfortunately, I'll be traveling a bit until then.


No problem; it seems to work just fine here. Anyway, I'll try to give it a deeper look with some more complex project, to see if it is still stable.

Thanks to both, guys! ;)
Cheers,
Diego
nekonoko wrote: A few updates in beta:

neko_autoconf-2.60
neko_automake-1.9.6
neko_bison-2.3
neko_bzip2-1.0.3
neko_emacs-21.4a
neko_m4-1.4.6
neko_make-3.81
neko_nano-1.3.12
neko_tar-1.15.91
neko_wget-1.10.2


KEWL!!! :D ...You're a killer build machine, Neko! ;)
nekonoko wrote: I wonder if the granite skins were an inspiration to SGI? ;)


...mmmhhh ...I don't know, but the monitor looks the same as the Sony GDM-1604A5 (originally branded SUN) that I've hacked to use on my second Indy years ago! :D
schleusel wrote: new in beta:

neko_x264-0.50.564.tardist - H264/avc encoder


Wow!; that's a damn cool addition! :shock:
zizban wrote: In case you haven't heard, Nekochan now has a wiki:
http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/Main_Page

We're trying to collect all the knowledge, how-tos and hacks collected on the forums over the years in one place to make it easy for anyone to find.


Whoaaa!!! :D ...What a nice idea!!! It seems that Nekochan will face the times to separate carbon from diamonds! Cool, great times on this new horizont! ;)
Well, here is my new toy. You'll have to wait for the exact specs because I'm very short of time, and right now my only test was a single power-up with the main peripherals plugged-in to see if everything works as expected.

The obligatory "hinv" and "gfxinfo" will follow soon. Enjoy the pict by now,
Diego

Attachment:
Octane-Dual-Head.jpg
Octane-Dual-Head.jpg [ 1.87 MiB | Viewed 2636 times ]

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fu wrote:
hey diego

sgis are back in your place?

(good news)


Well, you know... there is no men that could resist these atraction for a nice dual-head girl! ;)

fu wrote:
couldn't stand pee-cee stuff only eh?


Heheh... well, it is not so bad lately; in fact I think Ubuntu is pretty good. But I could not refuse to provide a good home for an IRIX64 machine, right?
Cheers,
Diego

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Very nice!, I'm finally posting this from the Octane!

Code:
hinv -vm
Location: /hw/node
PM10250MHZ Board: barcode GMW310     part 030-1284-002 rev  B
Location: /hw/node/xtalk/15
IP30 Board: barcode DZL443     part 030-0887-005 rev  A
Location: /hw/node/xtalk/15/pci/2
PWR.SPPLY.ER Board: barcode AAE8280598 part 060-0035-001 rev  B
FP1 Board: barcode 58337C     part 030-0891-003 rev  E
Location: /hw/node/xtalk/12
MOT10 Board: barcode GMH334     part 030-1241-002 rev  G
Location: /hw/node/xtalk/11
MOT10 Board: barcode HPA444     part 030-1241-002 rev  G
1 250 MHZ IP30 Processor
Heart ASIC: Revision E
CPU: MIPS R10000 Processor Chip Revision: 3.4
FPU: MIPS R10010 Floating Point Chip Revision: 0.0
Main memory size: 1536 Mbytes
Xbow ASIC: Revision 1.3
Instruction cache size: 32 Kbytes
Data cache size: 32 Kbytes
Secondary unified instruction/data cache size: 1 Mbyte
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version QL1040B (rev. 2), single ended
Disk drive: unit 1 on SCSI controller 0 (unit 1)
Disk drive: unit 2 on SCSI controller 0 (unit 2)
Integral SCSI controller 1: Version QL1040B (rev. 2), single ended
CDROM: unit 1 on SCSI controller 1
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty1
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty2
IOC3 parallel port: plp1
Graphics board: ESI with texture option
Graphics board: ESI
Integral Fast Ethernet: ef0, version 1, pci 2
Iris Audio Processor: version RAD revision 12.0, number 1
PCI Adapter ID (vendor 0x10a9, device 0x0003) PCI slot 2
PCI Adapter ID (vendor 0x1077, device 0x1020) PCI slot 0
PCI Adapter ID (vendor 0x1077, device 0x1020) PCI slot 1
PCI Adapter ID (vendor 0x10a9, device 0x0005) PCI slot 3


Code:
/usr/gfx/gfxinfo
Graphics board 0 is "IMPACTSR" graphics.
Managed (":0.0") 1280x1024
Product ID 0x2, 1 GE, 1 RE, 4 TRAMs
MGRAS revision 4, RA revision 0
HQ rev B, GE12 rev A, RE4 rev C, PP1 rev E,
VC3 rev A, CMAP rev E, Heart rev E
19" monitor (id 0x1)

Channel 0:
Origin = (0,0)
Video Output: 1280 pixels, 1024 lines, 72.24Hz (1280x1024_72)
Graphics board 1 is "IMPACTSR" graphics.
Managed (":0.1") 1280x1024
Product ID 0x2, 1 GE, 1 RE, 0 TRAMs
MGRAS revision 4, RA revision 0
HQ rev B, GE12 rev A, RE4 rev C, PP1 rev E,
VC3 rev A, CMAP rev E, Heart rev E
unknown, assuming 19" monitor (id 0xf)

Channel 0:
Origin = (0,0)
Video Output: 1280 pixels, 1024 lines, 60.00Hz (1280x1024_60)

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This is a great tool, I love it! It is now installed on my IP30, and after some short testing I'm sure this is the kind of tool that improves a lot the daily-use experience on IRIX. Very nice work!
ShadeOfBlue wrote: Thanks!


You know; you made 'swmgr' look a bit closer to apt-get! ;)
Awesome...
lomaany wrote: What is a Boolean in 3D STUDIO MAX? I’m a student in school and got a final 2morro. Our text book sucks and doesn’t explain anything. Can someone tell me what a Boolean is? And what it does? In 3D STUDIO MAX


Do you mean a Boolean Operation? This is to add, intersect, or substract two or more objects between them, getting a third object which is the addition, intersection, or substraction of those elements... (I'm not a big fan for 3DS Max anymore since lots of years, but I really enjoy Blender a lot! ;) B.T.W.: ...I hope this short and humble intro helps a bit!)
squeen wrote:
No, but thanks.


You're welcome, be my guest! ;) Your modelling/rendering looks superb!

squeen wrote:
I'm an guidance system designer and analyst not an animator.


Oh, sorry. After so many years here, I was always a bit "shy" to ask! :)

squeen wrote:
The work I've done with graphics has been to support mission design, but the base models are typically shared across a number of people


Sure, I understand. So, I guess your models are more oriented to a CAD type of accuracy than just visual animation models, since they probably must deal with real physical rules, reflect facts from missions, etc.

squeen wrote:
---and they usually require a lot of clean-up since it seems most applications are concerned primarily with import and pay little heed to a clean export.


Good point. I know what you mean. For example I discovered many weird things trying to share models between Blender and QCAD. Since many months ago I'm trying to improve my skills for some CAD modelling, but it seems I feel more comfortable with classic animation modellers than strictly CAD programs... more exactly, BlenderCAD... of course my projects/models are about thousand billion times simpler than yours! :)

But sometimes things gets more complex, and then BlenderCAD just does not cuts. It takes too much time to have a modelling done rispecting real scale, dimensions, etc. So I'm trying for now ArtOfIllusion, and it seems a very fast tool to work. Kinda of a kitchen sink to do real fast modelling oriented to obtain G-Code, or sharing with *.obj (Wavefront) capable apps. I've designed my first CNC Router by using BlenderCAD, but I'm doing my whole second machine with ArtOfIllusion, to then export/import the model to/from BlenderCAD for some fine touching. (In fact I'm actually trying to investigate a few things like: . ..How To Clean Up CAD Blue-Prints To Print Out? ...you're welcomed to help! :) )

squeen wrote:
The ray tracer is a testing tool I built (synthetic video) for a navigation experiment. I just can't seem to stop playing with it. :)


Well... you make the programmer in me to want to emerge and jump again to graphics! You know, long-long time since my latest affairs with OpenGL, MIPSPRO, etc. If I were you, I would chain my left leg to these... monster visualization center! :)
Have good fun. All the best,
Diego

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I don't know if the title is enough clear, so I'll expand the subject to some extents.

Well, over the past years I've spent more time coding some apps than operating third party softwares. But sometimes things reach an end, and thus happened with this. It seems that my new kind of work demmands exactly the opposite, and I miss a bit of practice with a few things.

One of these things is Blue-Prints. Let me explain it better: -let's say I'm modelling a given product by using ArtOfIllusion or BlenderCAD, and everything goes smoothly... I have the results just as I like, and all the rest. Then, let's say I want to print some relevant views from the plains, and then I just got all kind of superfluous lines... the kind of auxiliar lines that you get from several apps when "they try to show you better" the surfaces from a boolean object... and things like that... you know, the plain looks awfully nasty, and you can't reckon what is really relevant for mechanizing and the rest of processes.

So... let's say I want just the wires-model... how to clean it properly for print out to paper? I'm pretty sure there is probably some viewer, at the very best style from LX-Viewer (which is used for DXF/DWG AutoCAD projects) or something like that; but I fail to find one! Maybe I'm missing some option from AOI, or BlenderCAD?

Then, how to remove -just for print work- all of thoses nasty lines, to just keep the relevant contours? I hope some CAD-awared master here will help me a bit! :D
All the best,
Diego

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dc_v01 wrote:
I think you're running into a problem which is a fundamental difference between a CAD package (Pro/ENGINEER, Solidworks) and a 3D modelling package (Maya, 3DS Max). You're issue is trivially simple to fix on any real CAD program - you need to set "Hidden Line Removal" (there are a couple of options for this usually, as well as fast/quality settings for your display) and some options for the display of tangent edge intersections. 3D modelling packages aren't normally used to print blueprints to paper and probably don't have these options (but I'm not a user of them, so hard to tell). I would think your best bet is to export them in a compatible format (likely DXF/DWG, but I'd use STEP or IGES if you can. Actually I'm not sure DXF/DWG will preserve the surface data you need, they might not work.) to a real CAD application. Unfortunately, the open source/free CAD programs I know of are all 2D (QCAD), and you need a 3D application. I've only used higher end packages, but there are some relatively inexpensive packages (TurboCAD? something like that...) that retail for $150, $200 or so that might meet your needs for import/print.

FWIW, making prints has always been one of the weaker points of even 3D CAD programs. My old favorite CAD modelling program, I-DEAS, used to have a completely different program for drawings. You'd have this wonderful model, then you'd click an icon to set up the views, then BOOM, IDEAS would shut down, and then this shitty drawing program would start up with a completely different user interface, and yes, you'd have to muck around a bit with the hidden lines. I hope they fixed that at some point - I haven't used it in more than 10 years. Modern programs are much better. And IDEAS is dead.


Thanks dc_v01!, your post is extremely insightful, very useful for me! ...at least now I know I'm not the only one ! :)

Now that you mention "Hidden Line Removal", this sentence sounds familiar for me, either from some programming libraries to help OpenGL with extended primitives, and things like that. I also seem to recall, ages ago when used to try 3DSMax, it had something like that.

To get back on-topic, it seems there are no cheap userland solutions either for IRIX or LINUX to help on this subject... right? It seems TurboCAD only runs with Windows/MacOSX.

An hour ago I've tried to set the BlenderCAD render engine to use Toon Edge Enhance, to increase the contour detail from perspective viewport. It works amazingly well for some models, more specifically if you set the textures to null and materials to a neutral gray color; but again, it does not solves my problem. It only makes a few more lookable either global or exploded views.

I'll take a look at BlenderCAD to see if there is no chance to remove hidden lines. You know, BlenderCAD is a just blender with a set of plugins/patchs to help a bit with some tasks... but this is what I have now! :)

For this time I'll be able to bypass the problem, but I'll have to search for a real solution here... all the best,
Diego

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dc_v01 wrote:
Yes, people who could afford SGIs usually could afford to pay for software, so no low cost alternatives. :(


Yes, it sounds pretty logical. After all, the independant professional, hobbyist, or alone single user who has bought a machine through eBay or any equivalent shop site is a bit of a stowaway on SGI-Land! :)

dc_v01 wrote:
Open source doesn't seem to have made a 3D CAD application yet, only 2D. The only 3D apps are modeling apps like Blender.


I guess you're right... but perhaps would worth the pain to take another look at it, since there are frequently "hidden" FOSS projects, that one seem to discover sporadically... or well, maybe I'm only wishing it... :)

dc_v01 wrote:
Yep, this is a characteristic of viewing a 3D model. CAD apps let you put "views" to "paper" for making drawings . And you start to deal with "lineweights" or even "pens" - back to the good old pen plotters of the old days, still supported! (Even though everyone uses inkjets now!)


Yes, my brother-in-law used to work with such kind of apps back on the days of MS-DOS... but I do not had interest for CAD on these days, only for 3D/Animation, Programming, etc... until now! ...and I don't like either learn/use AutoCAD! ...I just want... ehrrr... something else! :)

dc_v01 wrote:
I wasn't familier with it, I thought you were just referring to the modeling interface of Blender...


If you have the time, take a look here. You wont regret. It is pretty interesting:

Extensions:Py/Scripts/Manual/CAD
Extensions:Py/Scripts/Manual/CAD/BlenderCAD

Of course, I guess compared to a real CAD app, it could look as a toyware... and this is probably right, but has some real usefulness too.

This one should be pretty new too, since it was not there when I've installed the rest:

Extensions:Py/Scripts/Manual/CAD/ProCAD

...but it seems to be oriented to architecture of buildings?
Anyway, I'll take a deeper look on next hours, to see if there is something new from any FOSS movement.

Have fun!
Diego

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Here are a few of my more interesting findings for "Open Source CAD 3D" keywords on Google... of course, most part of them are only 2D, but still interesting:

Archimedes

Art Of Illusion (I'm already using it...)

avoCADo (It needs way more development, but looks promising!)

BRL-CAD (It looks extremely useful, albeit a bit difficult to learn for me! ...maybe I should take the challenge some day?)

CoCreate (Killer app, but only available for MS Windows flavours...)

freeCAD (Powerful for real world mechanical/physical simulator... but for modelling, I feel as if I were operating my computer with boxing gloves!)

Free-CAD (This one looks friendly, and can handle many file formats... I like it... this thing seems to be what I would need... so I could want to see more progress... anyway, it is already added to my toolchain!)

FreeCAD.Com (A database of apps for many platforms.)

FREEdraft

Free Mechanical Engineering CAD Software (Very useful summary of apps!)

Google SketchUp (Not a FOSS app, I guess?)

GraphiteOne CAD (Supported for several OS, try-out version available but for commerical use requires licensing... only problem: downloads are disabled!)

lignumCAD (Wood working oriented)

Open CASCADE (This one seems to be "THE THING"; I've downloaded it... but not tried yet!)

Open Source CAD Applications (Another list, this one shorter.)

...Lego? :)

BlockCAD

...and some others, perhaps more related with EDA:

TinyCAD

Let me know your findings!
Diego

EDIT: ...I'll probably add more to the list as soon as I get more relevant info; and of course I'll try (albeit slowly) all of them.

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theinonen wrote:
What kind of Blue-Prints are you working with?

Do you require 3D CAD? Many 2D CAD programs have primitive 3D drawing tools for drawing in perspective and creating isometric views.


Well... it is not as I require 3D CAD, it is just I feel more comfortable dealing with 3D primitives, you know. But hey, I guess I'm open to try something different if it works... so, what do you suggest?

I'm using Art Of Illusion and BlenderCAD to model some little CNC Machines, and al sort of electronic equipments for automation, and on a last case, audio.

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dc_v01 wrote:
Thanks for the software lists, Diego, there's some I'd not seen there before!


I love to do lists!, you know! :)
...same here: I've noticed a few different beasts since my last time!

dc_v01 wrote:
BRL-CAD exists for IRIX (maybe only the older versions, haven't looked in a while) but unfortunately I think they focused on modeling as well, and there isn't much/any drawing support. That's just my impression, though, I've never used it.


Yes, I have it installed on my Octane I think... but there was something (I can't recall what!) that pushed me away from it in favour of BlenderCAD, and from BlenderCAD in favour of Art Of Illusion, oh well... I was recently pushed to learn too many apps! :cry:

dc_v01 wrote:
The FreeCAD software looked interesting - it's new, can't tell if the drawing package is working yet, but at least they're planning on it.


Never tried it! ...I should install it here!

dc_v01 wrote:
Of course, win/linux only - but don't you have some mad C++ skillzz? Maybe you want to tackle an IRIX port? :)


Well, I should make me a bit of time some day to launch a few MIPSPRO sessions... it seems it was a century ago since my latest one! :)

dc_v01 wrote:
I think the issue is he already has the stuff modeled in BlenderCAD that he probably doesn't want to start over - and if you've been doing 3D, would you really want to go back to 2D even if it works?


You're right... because I'm used to model a lot by using booleans, and extrudings... so, I guess I would feel a bit limited with 2D. But if it solves my problem with drawings... I guess it would worth the pain... is there any FOSS 2D CAD to try out with IRIX or LINUX?

In example, here is how it looks a perspective rendered by BlenderCAD, by using Toon Edge Enhance. Without any materials/textures it would look way better, and at least you can print a perspective view without background, by using Alpha Channel. The toon edge was increased to make it more evident:

Attachment:
ESL-V1.0.0-PerspCam-01.png
ESL-V1.0.0-PerspCam-01.png [ 73.83 KiB | Viewed 1648 times ]


Right now, I'm just using a different camera for each view (front, rear, top, bottom, left, right, etc...) then I can get a full set of views. But it is not the best way to do it, you know it, I know it... :)

It will generate a cool looking set of views, but it will hidde many relevant details, so you'll need to set up a few extra cams to get inside the models, so you can catch extra details. At least I already develop a method to avoid the distorted perspective from the virtual camera lenses for each view, so I get a pretty neat drawing. As I said, I'm actually about to complete a new CNC Router, which in fact I'm building right at this moment too! ...so, feel free to indulge my above pict, but it is just a sample :)

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Oh, yeap, I know what you mean hamei (and sgtprobe); this is one of the many things to sort out when you use a 3D/Animation app for CAD use.

That was my first problem with BlenderCAD, then I've noticed if you press "N" while you have an object selected, you can input numerically all the required parameters... the problem is... if you have "Dim X: 11.964" the programme does not knows if those are 11.964 mils or 11.964 yards... heheh! ...then you set the grid accordingly, and things get more consistent if you take careful note from the scale values, and so on... but at least it will export to DXF (and another myriad of scene descriptors and formats!) if needed.

With Art Of Illusion, things are a bit different, but not so much. You always get numerical info from the selected object, but the problem is: it does not reckons correctly the booleans! ....so you need to measure them with another auxiliar object used as a rule. This one only exports to OBJ (Wavefront), POV (POVRay), and VRML.

So, as you can see... I'm not getting all that help from my computer right at this moment... of course she likes to be more collaborative, but... my tools are not the required ones! :)

All in all, I've managed to get fairly good results from both tools lately, but spending way more time than necessary... yes. Another thing is, I don't know how precisely would be exported my models from both apps... but at least an OBJ from AOI to BlenderCAD worked fine (but not the reverse way, at least for me)

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Perfect solution!

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