VariCAD 3D CAD installation small problem

[Old-Polack]

wedgeling:

Not to throw you off course, but as a matter of interest, since you have AutoCad Lite, have you seen this?

AutoCAD / Linux / XGL

[wedgetail]

No, I have not seen this.  the use of AutoCAD is out of the question, too expensive.  running under Wine is not my strong inclination. Tried a small and very dear application called Editpad Pro and after a lot of customisation to get calls to flow between pclos and Wine it worked accetably my way except a big slow down in opening a file because of some wine problem was not sticking to the rules.  Then that version of pclos went really funny but still functioning and I have it sitting somewhere still but have moved onto a pclos 2009 and as the thread shows got myself tangled up with VariCAD. 

[wedgetail]

Still going strong in VariCAD. There is a major upgrade but I have not had time to install to see what difference it may make. I am not really up to the standard of taking advantage of increased parametric support. Still struggling with basics.

Have been putting in too much time and as a result suddenly seemed to hit a wall, did not want to see Varicad at all for a couple of days. Come back again realising there is no way I will get throug all I would have liked in 30 days. Now I am just working along the following way.

I spend half my time really trying to follow the quick tutorials the other half I then spend designing small extension to the house and secondly copying parts of a real mechanical lathe, designed along the principles of the Urwick lathe from the 1950 !!!???, the new version arrived on the scene in latish 2008 and is called Stepperhead. It is a piece of art and as such probaly never will be put into production which is a real shame. 

All this will keep my busy. Have had no further problems running it under PCLOS, making me wonder if I ever have had. I would suggest that anybody wanting to try a good 3D program have a go, keeping in mind it is aimed at mechanical engineering.

[wedgetail]

My 30 day free trial ran out 2 days ago, I was going strong.  To keep myself focused and working fairly intensive without tiring of the frustrations of apparently making mistake after mistake I embarked on a couple of projects that really interests me.  That helped and I am now powering along fine.

Have though decided to brake up every couple of hours and go and do other things, I know this works the treat.  I have found one item that terminates the apllication instantly. VariCAD is now inoperable in Linux until I make the decsision whether to buy or not.

I am now running the Windows version of VariCAD to see if it is identical as claimed and I have the major upgrade that came out during my trial. The upgrade has not shown any noticeable difference to me as the heavy updating was in the advanced sections. I am still in the apprentice section

I did have a lightning look at the IntelliCAD, several versions are on offer at much lower costs, the one I picked I misread and thought it was working with solids like VariCAD but the program could display simulated solids and some solids but the working with solids not a strong side.  There were a couple of reasons why I was tempted to investigate this further, recommendation from other users and also because it is AutCAD clones, and I have a background in AutoCAD.  However VariCAD still come out on top despite the twice the cost.

Status: PCLINUXOS 2009.2  to me appears to handle VariCAD satisfactorily. When I picked up speed there was some slow down which I was not so happy about.  However I have change PC and windows seems to handle without speed decline.  I will install pclinuxos on this machine and see if there still are perceived speed difference.  Never ending it seems.  

[Animal]

Thanks for the report on your status, i think the magazine would really dig an article from you on your experience and such

[wedgetail]

As my trial version in Linux ran out I have about 55 drawing bits sitting in the file system. Which I would like to look at.  I was aware of the VariCAD-Viewer program, which I understand you hand to your 'clients' plus your proposal so they can spin the models around and do some other minor measuring and investigate information about objects, fx surface area or volume.

I downloaded the 13MB file and again with some trepidations approached the:
 
[root@PCLOS2009 Holding]# rpm -ihv VariCAD_View_Linux_2009-en-2.02-1.i586.rpm

actually accidental as I meant to do a:

[root@PCLOS2009 Holding]# rpm -qpi VariCAD_View_Linux_2009-en-2.02-1.i586.rpm

To my relief the program installed ok, and the second line gave an amount of information, amongst other I was hoping it would have told me how tot start the program. Alas no, this is hidden somewhere else.

The more I think about it, I am wondering if the installation is fully completed as I do not get any icons on the desktop, which I half expected. So far I have just gone to terminal and typed in the "call" when I have found it.  For the program this is "varicad" and for the the viewer it is "varicad-view" very logical. 

I did try some guessing but this did not work so I went looking for the the installed files which I found under:

\home\opt\VariCAD-View\desktop\varicadview.mdkmenu

Content of this file is:

?package(VariCAD Viewer): command="/usr/bin/varicad-view" title="VariCAD Viewer" longtitle="VariCAD Viewer" needs="x11" icon="varicadviewer.png" section="More Applications"

I just guessed that the "varicad-view" in the "command" was the call and this worked. I will attach a screen cut of the file area.

However from this information am I not correct that I ought to have an icon on the desktop?

Anybody volunteer a hand, I am just too pressed to go exploring right now.

tabrown05  I am not sure I am qualified or good enough to write an article, however later when I am finished testing, who knows. I am getting fairly caught up in this little exercise.  Whilst fun I am wondering if I am up to the task of getting as far as I had hoped.  I really would like to get to stage of producing assembly drawings and BOM (Bill of material) as corrections here flows backwards.  Ohhh ya using the parameters and make parametric drawings, fantastic.  The obstacle I am an engineer not not a drawing person. Fascinating though.

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[Animal]

I am not sure I am qualified or good enough to write an article

As fas as I know the pclos magazine team is more concerned about contributions and having participants and a good time doing it.

From what I can tell from your posts you are clear, concise, and accurate in your descriptions for me thats good enough.

Anyway if you decide to do it you have my vote and I'll be looking forward to it.

Good luck

[wedgetail]

Boy, I think I am in trouble now.  I am on the same pc running VariCAD on XP and pclos 2009.2 (just installed) after some fun as I did not have a DVD/CD installed. Made up a USB LiveCD problems with this is described in another thread. The result was that I discovered that my Gigabyte G41M-ES2L uses the G41 Intel chip set. This has forced me to use the Video-Vesa mode.

Tried two other Intel X servers but in both cases no GUI. Seems tha Linux does not support the G41 so far only G35 and G43   

Running VESA I can run VariCAD but get a message on startup "OpenGL is not accellerated" and I detect a slowness in response compared with running the program in XP 

I am struggling to keep my head around these things. Running Vesa does that mean no OpenGL or have I missed something. (I hope the latter)

[Wildman]

I just built two systems using the Intel d-41 chipset. (DG41ty) I have had no problems with the video, either the on-board Intel 4500 or the Nvidia 8600 video adapter.
I did have to set the Intel 4500 to 16 bit for awhile, but a later update fixed that.

[wedgetail]

Could you open a terminal and post the result of: lspci

I would love to see the content of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf

My onboard is a GMA 4500

I don't remember what the DG41 is, doing a major update so I can't search net just now for about an hour

[Wildman]

Could you open a terminal and post the result of: lspci

I would love to see the content of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf

My onboard is a GMA 4500

I don't remember what the DG41 is, doing a major update so I can't search net just now for about an hour

Both of these systems went out the door last week, however, I have placed a call to the lady who has the 4500 running. When she calls me back I will have her do this and email it to me. Hopefully today...

[wedgetail]

Thank you, much appreciated.

Have just finished the major update, I think there has been a change in that I think I am running on an Intel Xserver now. However I still have VariCAD telling OpenGL is not accelerated.

It is 2 in the morning I am off to bed.  

[wedgetail]

Been wondering what this GMA 4500 was, from the Intel G41 chipset specs [forgotten most of it few weeks after going through it]
http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Chipsets/G41/G41-overview.htm
quite clear in above
GMA=Graphics Media Accelerator

DG41TY  is an Intel Motherboard, so that is cleared up in my mind.

The Intel G41 Express Chipset delivers optimized 3D graphics performance and support for Microsoft DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL 2.0,

There seems to be a hint in the link below, that a driver do exist that does something for "series 4 chip sets" but it is a bit beyond me to figure the details.   

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg-announce/2008-July/000621.html

Any graphics experts that can interpet if this would 'accelerate in OpenGL' 

[Wildman]

wedgeling , no answer yet from the lady, but, I am at the present building another chipset 41 based system with the 4500 onboard video.
I am using a ASUS P5G41-M LE  Mainboard in it.
Soon as the processor and memory get here, I'll be able to complete it. I should have more information for you from it too.
 

[wedgetail]

Thanks for the effort. That motherboard I looked at seriously but took too long to decide so when we wanted to order, not in stock. Not to worry I am thinking about a replacement pc a bit more mean than this.

I am starting to dig in and collecting information. I made the decision to buy VariCAD for Linux, with some trepidation as on this computer with the present graphics adapter XP is clearly slicker, I am assuming because of the graphics driver supplied by Intel. So I am hoping to get a solution, which may be to get an outboard Graphics card. that will come later.

This is the OpenGL data that I found readily in the application that accesses the driver.

3D
OpenGL settings:
Asynchronous Flip = off
Triple buffering = default
Flipping policy = flip
Depth buffer bit depth = default
Force S3T texture compression = off
Force FXT1 texture compression = off
Driver memory footprints = normal
Texture color depth = desktop color depth
Aisotropic filtering = Application control

This does not tell me much at the moment.