kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["�vind Aabling" <Oyvind.Aabling@xxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 30 Aug 2010, Lorenzo Marcantonio wrote:

> On Sun, 29 Aug 2010, Vesa Solonen wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 29 Aug 2010, Øyvind Aabling wrote:
> >
> > > Yep, the file http://www.uspro.org/documents/IGES5-3_forDownload.pdf
> > > looks interesting - seems to be the full IGES 5.x specs,
> > > i.e. just what we need, so if anyone's got this file, or has
> > > more luck accessing www.uspro.org, let's have a copy, please ...
>
> Good luck with IGES (*expecially* 3D IGES :D). It's the biggest
> design-by-commitee beast I've ever seen (anyway it seem paragonable in
> complexity with STEP).

I've looked at the IGES specs, and you're right - it _is_
a bit if a beast, especially exceptions like "if this flag
is set, take the Entity parms from another Entity" :-(

So far, I have a program (perl, of course :-) that can read and
parse an IGES file (Global, Directory and Parameter sections),
and I've begun adding processors for the simpler IGES
Entity types (Color, Xform matrix, Point, Line, Arc).

Each Entity is pretty simple, but the possibility of having nested (and
reusable) Entities, and the exceptions, will complicate matters somewhat :-(

So, before I take things too far, I'd like to know if it'll be worth the
efford - are there enough 3D models in IGES format available from the
manufacturers, or will an IGES-to-VRML converter be of limited use ?

> Do we have something free to test against to?

All I have is a few sample IGES files, but that should suffice 4 now :-)

> --
> Lorenzo Marcantonio
> Logos Srl

Øyvind.