Can we get a plugin interface (#3752) - Suggestions

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ERP		#1 Posted : Saturday, May 7, 2011 10:58:36 AM(UTC)
Rank: Junior Member Joined: 4/24/2011(UTC) Posts: 1		I just started using VIA CAD Pro V7 and I'm very impressed. My primary use is to provide models to a CAM package. I'm currently playing with a CAM package I wrote for my own purposes. The vast majority of the code is model import/selection so I'm interested in potentially embedding it in a CAD package. Obviously that requires some sort of add-on interface. I would assume some thing like this is either very easy or extremely hard depending on the internals. Alternatively a description of the via cad on disc format would be nice. The problem with going through intermediate formats like STL is you lose a lot of information about the model.


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dhpeterson		#2 Posted : Monday, May 23, 2011 8:24:57 PM(UTC)
Rank: Junior Member Joined: 5/21/2011(UTC) Posts: 9		Hi ERP, I'm brand new to ViaCaD (so take this for what it's worth) but I believe it's built on the ACIS engine by Spatial - and can export SAT format models. The ACIS engine and SAT file format specification are discussed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACIS#File_format That link also contains a reference to a SAT file format guide in PDF format, which is here: http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/sat/sat.pdf I'm not sure whether this will be what you need but I suspect it will get you further than a raw STL model for the CAM purposes you mentioned. Hope this helps? Others with more experience may wish to chime in ;) -- Dave


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dhpeterson		#3 Posted : Monday, May 23, 2011 8:54:51 PM(UTC)
Rank: Junior Member Joined: 5/21/2011(UTC) Posts: 9		I should also mention that I would vote +1 for an embedded Ruby interpreter within the CAD tool - similar to the lines offered by Sketchup. I program in Ruby regularly and I would say the ability to interact dynamically with the CAD model using Ruby code on a console "command line" (as well as adding additional logic in the form of Ruby modules) could be quite powerful. It could also open up an eco-system of 3rd party community add-ons etc! -- Dave


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