kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, May 9, 2017 at 11:19 AM, Oliver Walters
<oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Does Wings3D have any benefit over FreeCAD with regard to VRML support? I
> certainly agree that we should perhaps suggest FreeCAD over Wings.
>

You can get better material appearances using Wings3D but it really is
a nuisance
to get right. For those who script their own models in FreeCAD it's
much better to
use StepUp and assign material appearances for VRML. However, I suspect some
people would still rather use Wings3D even though the resulting model has no
value whatsoever for mechanical use. I guess you could always set up
polls to see
what sort of responses you get from users.

- Cirilo


> On Tue, May 9, 2017 at 11:16 AM, Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, May 9, 2017 at 10:13 AM, Oliver Walters
>> <oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > I note that the Windows installer still finishes with the "You should
>> > install Wings3D" message. Is anyone really still using this?
>> >
>> > Perhaps the time has come to remove this message...
>> >
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>>
>> Personally I would like to discourage people from using Wings3D; however
>> VRML
>> is still supported and all the documentation refers to the Wings3D
>> modeler. I would
>> be happier to change the message from "You should install" to
>> something else; after
>> all Wings3D is not required for KiCad to work.
>>
>> If someone updates the documentation on 3D models then we can suggest
>> FreeCAD for designers with 3d solid model requirements, Maurice's
>> FreeCAD/StepUp
>> tools for those who also want pretty VRML files, and Wings3D for those who
>> only
>> want pretty VRML files (but for some reason don't want to use StepUp).
>> It would be
>> good if we also had some documentation demonstrating how to create models
>> in
>> FreeCAD otherwise most new users will simply be overwhelmed and have
>> little hope of
>> doing what they want. Without such documentation I would be more
>> inclined to mention
>> StepUp (which Maurice has documented and supports) but not FreeCAD on its
>> own.
>>
>> - Cirilo
>
>