removal of dxf term from default build

[Karl-Friedrich Ratzsch]

Hi,

last week two old legacy terminals were removed from the default
target in the 5.1cvs tree. While corel is indeed likely not useful
any more, I wanted to point out that Autodesk's dxf is still the
standard 2D vector exchange format, that can be read in by every
program in the CAD/CAM business.

Especially some of the freeware CAD suites just cannot construct
lines via mathematical formulas, and it's still a hassle imo with
e.g. Inventor.

So, unless it becomes really broken, it'd be nice to keep it at
least in future binaries, for those who cannot easily make their own
build. As long as you can do simple black and white line plots, it's
still useful.

Best, Karl

[p***@piments.com]

Post by Karl-Friedrich Ratzsch
Hi,
last week two old legacy terminals were removed from the default
target in the 5.1cvs tree. While corel is indeed likely not useful
any more, I wanted to point out that Autodesk's dxf is still the
standard 2D vector exchange format, that can be read in by every
program in the CAD/CAM business.
Especially some of the freeware CAD suites just cannot construct
lines via mathematical formulas, and it's still a hassle imo with
e.g. Inventor.
So, unless it becomes really broken, it'd be nice to keep it at
least in future binaries, for those who cannot easily make their own
build. As long as you can do simple black and white line plots, it's
still useful.
Best, Karl
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Interesting, I had not thought of using gnuplot but it could potentially
be a valid means of producing involute profiles for gear wheels.

Someone has videos showing how to do this is Blender, which gives very
nice £d models but is a bit of an up hilll struggle.

Maybe using Gnuplot would be a better option to create the outline and
save as DXF. I probably never thought of this because I did not know it
had a DXF terminal.

Thanks for pointing that out. I would second the idea of keeping it
since it is still very much valid in CAD/CAM context, not obsolete.

Peter.

[sfeam]

Post by Karl-Friedrich Ratzsch
Hi,
last week two old legacy terminals were removed from the default
target in the 5.1cvs tree. While corel is indeed likely not useful
any more, I wanted to point out that Autodesk's dxf is still the
standard 2D vector exchange format, that can be read in by every
program in the CAD/CAM business.

Excellent. My sneaky scheme to flush out potential maintainers
for ancient terminal types is succeeding :-) :-)

Can you confirm that at least one of the current generation of CAD
programs can import something useful from gnuplot?

Any other gnuplot + CAD users out there?


The limit of my ability to check functionality was to confirm that
gnuplot 5.0.6 produces essentially the same output as gnuplot version
3.7.2 from 2002. But the dxf driver code itself is older yet.
The code in current cvs is only trivially different from the code initially
imported into "gnuplot beta" in 1998 to start the SourceForge repository.
Comments in the header push it back another 3 years at least.

So on the one hand it's great if code from 23 years is still useful,
but are there no features from decades of gnuplot development
that would make it just a little bit more useful?

In other words, if the terminal is going to be including in the current
default build don't you think it should support current default features?

Wouldn't it be more useful if it handled (off the top of my head)
- rectangles/circles/objects in general
- control of linetypes, dot-dash patterns, etc

By the same token, the gnuplot source code says it adheres to the
format for Autocad Release 10 (1988) format DWGR10).
Autocad is now at release 32 and uses DWG2018 file format.
If we're going to continue to claim support for autocad output, wouldn't it be nice
to check if there are matching capabilities on both sides that have
been introduced over the last 20 years?

Ethan

Post by Karl-Friedrich Ratzsch
Especially some of the freeware CAD suites just cannot construct
lines via mathematical formulas, and it's still a hassle imo with
e.g. Inventor.
So, unless it becomes really broken, it'd be nice to keep it at
least in future binaries, for those who cannot easily make their own
build. As long as you can do simple black and white line plots, it's
still useful.
Best, Karl

[Ethan A Merritt]

OK. dxf is back, with the "legacy" tag removed.
But please someone look into updating it where appropriate so that it
adheres to the 2012 DXF standard:

http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/autocad_2012_pdf_dxf-reference_enu.pdf

Ethan

Post by sfeam
Can you confirm that at least one of the current generation of CAD
programs can import something useful from gnuplot?

I have imported gnuplot dxf into Autodesk Inventor 2012 and 2014,
LibreCAD/QCAD even use dxf as their default format. FEMM (2D finite
element program, www.femm.info) con only use dxf to import model
geometries (gnuplot dxf works), COMSOL 4.2 (~2012) can also import
dxf and I think i tried a gnuplot-made dxf once.
I uploaded a few screenshots on
https://sourceforge.net/p/gnuplot/feature-requests/463/

Post by sfeam
So on the one hand it's great if code from 23 years is still useful,
but are there no features from decades of gnuplot development
that would make it just a little bit more useful?
In other words, if the terminal is going to be including in the current
default build don't you think it should support current default features?
Wouldn't it be more useful if it handled (off the top of my head)
- rectangles/circles/objects in general
- control of linetypes, dot-dash patterns, etc

Rectangles come out broken in LibreCAD, but look OK in Inventor.
There's something odd there.
Circles work, as do ellipses.
Some lines come out dashed in both Inventor and LibreCAD, although
not supposed to be.
So I say there are a few hooks and loops than could get fixed, but
all in all the terminal works nicely.
Karl
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[p***@piments.com]

Post by sfeam
Can you confirm that at least one of the current generation of CAD
programs can import something useful from gnuplot?

I have imported gnuplot dxf into Autodesk Inventor 2012 and 2014,
LibreCAD/QCAD even use dxf as their default format. FEMM (2D finite
element program, www.femm.info) con only use dxf to import model
geometries (gnuplot dxf works), COMSOL 4.2 (~2012) can also import
dxf and I think i tried a gnuplot-made dxf once.
I uploaded a few screenshots on
https://sourceforge.net/p/gnuplot/feature-requests/463/

Post by sfeam
So on the one hand it's great if code from 23 years is still useful,
but are there no features from decades of gnuplot development
that would make it just a little bit more useful?
In other words, if the terminal is going to be including in the current
default build don't you think it should support current default features?
Wouldn't it be more useful if it handled (off the top of my head)
- rectangles/circles/objects in general
- control of linetypes, dot-dash patterns, etc

Rectangles come out broken in LibreCAD, but look OK in Inventor.
There's something odd there.
Circles work, as do ellipses.
Some lines come out dashed in both Inventor and LibreCAD, although
not supposed to be.
So I say there are a few hooks and loops than could get fixed, but
all in all the terminal works nicely.
Karl

Thanks for doing that test.

I looks like gnuplot dxf is a bit flaky in its current state but not
that far off.

Peter.