[engr]

I have been working on a .net wrapper for opencascade (https://github.com/veggielane/EngrCAD) but opencascade interop from .net is a pain. I also fell in and out of love with SDF, as most CAM tools need BREP.

I agree with people in this thread, the world needs more CAD kernels. I also think that we need a language agnostic markup language to represent the BREP.

[westoncb]

Out of curiosity, why did you fall out of love with SDF?

Also curious why BREP is represented through a language rather than e.g. a tree or graph (or maybe this is just a language shortcut, and the idea is that the language is used to specify BREP objects?)

[engr]

I want my data to be compatible with existing CAM tools so I can get parts machined.

I like BREP via language, it allows great flexibility and ability to query geometry at run time, e.g. Find all vertical edges to apply radius.

[phkahler]

>> I also think that we need a language agnostic markup language to represent the BREP.

I agree with that, but some serious decisions have to be made or it will end up a mess like STEP.

[engr]

Yeah, agreed. Would be cool to have multiple CAD kernels using the same markup language, then you can easily version control and use it for interchange.

[rjsw]

In what way do you consider STEP to be a mess?

[engr]

ISO 10303-21 is annoying to read and write, with an awful lot of stuff not used by CAD tools

[rjsw]

Don't read or write it then, use software that will do it for you.

I don't know of anything that isn't useful in ISO 10303-21.

[ramboldio]

Couldn't one build a SDF-native CAM tool? That should be even a better fit than B-reps, no?

[engr]

SDF for CAM would be a great approach, but quite a big beast to attempt