A new CAD program on the block. And it’s free.
http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130913-new-free-to-download-designspark-mechanical-to-bring-3d-design-to-everyone.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3aMN_NNlD4
Windows only but it does look like a nice piece of software.
Shame it is Windows only.
Well maybe after they work out the details they might port to other OS’s.
The more time goes on, the less likely they port to Linux/Mac - the codebase just gets more and more complicated and that inflates what it would cost to port.
Linux users might not be your largest user base, but they’re the most vocal when it comes to telling people about your product.
@ThantiK is right. Either you design with multi platform in mind from the beginning or you probably won’t ever get around to it.
Can never understand why people don’t code on Linux first then port across to doze and apple. It easier.
You’re right but Windows is where the money is. Or at least it was. That’s changing.
Fantastic software!
This is not new software: it’s SpaceClaim. http://www.spaceclaim.com/en/default.aspx
SpaceClaim is a 3D mechanical CAD software that has been around for a few years. It’s not free… My guess is the company behind DesignSpark has licensed SpaceClaim’s code base. Like DraftSight from Dassault is a stripped down version of ARES Commander Edition by Graebert.
I vote for a Linux port. Should be easy enough in today’s IDEs. Why don’t more people develop in a cross platform environment and have cross platform software? I love my Linux desktop and the community. I don’t develop so I guess that’s why I don’t understand.
SpaceClaim is a Windows-only application. Software such as CAD is extremely complex and porting to other OSes it’s never been designed for is an almost impossible task. It’s also probably based on .NET technology. There is no money to be had in a Linux-port for SpaceClaim, and since DesignSpark is almost certainly based on SpaceClaim, that’s that.
I run Ubuntu at home so I use FreeCAD, it’s more complicated, buggy, and not feature complete, but it’s open source. I am leery of free commercial offerings.
Yes I understand what you are saying and there is a thing called the mono project for .net compatibility and then there is the wcgi, opps think I got that wrong, which does cross platform opengl supposedly well. The second thing is that I thought this was free software already so why would you make a statement about no profits in Linux? I believe there is a paradigm about Linux and open source that I’d like shifted. Actually more the one paradigm.
@Karl_Banasky
Read back my first comment. DesignSpark is not a new CAD app made from scratch. It’s based on SpaceClaim, which itself is a pretty expensive package ($1500 I think). If there is no SpaceClaim for Linux, there is no DesignSpark for Linux, simple as that. And mono is not a straight .NET replacement, it takes a lot more than that. Then there are tens of complex software libraries used. The graphics toolkit is probably Windows-only. I’m too lazy to find the reference, but I take this from an influential CAD blogger who spent time in the CAD software business: if a software was not developed to be multi-platform in the first place, porting it is a huge expense of resources that the company may not have any interest in.
Mono is dead and never was a useful cross platform tool anyway.
That said there are plenty of cross platform frameworks available. Simply using C++, Qt and GL would get you most of the way. But there are SDK’s that make cross platform development as simple as a click.
Even devs that can’t afford expensive commercial SDK’s can use things like Lazarus which is a complete dev environment with a GUI, Window designer and cross compiler.
Resorting to crap like .NET and Mono just isn’t necessary.
So anyone d/l this yet? Are they going to own the rights to all the models made w/this program since you have to register with the site? Hence the reason I didn’t like 123D & 123D Catch. I was afraid they would own the rights to my models.