[SOLVED] Windows 10, OpenCamLib mandatory now??

[sliptonic]

While OCL isn't mandatory, yet, some features will not work without it and personally I'm starting to get a little concerned that so much effort is going into a library that is currently incompatible with Python3, (now the default with FreeCAD). OCL might not ever be able to build with Py3 unless it undergoes a complete rewrite, and I don't think/know anyone that is doing that. To continue down the road with what could easily become an obsoleted and unusable, (to FreeCAD), library, I don't know...

With hind site being 20/20 and all, perhaps Path should of started out as a project to write a CAM kernel that was a part of the FreeCAD package, instead of relying, even a little bit, on external, unmaintained 3rd party, incompatible licensed, (it's still incompatible, right?), products.

Please, no one take this the wrong way, just my personal observations. I in no way intend to offend anyone doing such excellent work on Path, just putting out a users perspective, and perhaps a little frustration with this current OCL mess.

Mark

OCL is not incompatible with Python3. Markus and others worked to port it to python3 last year. The issue we're seeing is with packaging.
I had to entirely ditch my Linux Mint installation and switch to debian to get it to install, but once installed, it works as expected.

OCL also has no license problems. Anders Wallin (the originator of both OpenCamLib and OpenVoronoi) agreed to convert both projects to LGPL. Agreement was sought and granted from all contributors and the projects were relicensed last year.

https://github.com/aewallin/opencamlib/issues/28
https://github.com/aewallin/openvoronoi/issues/35

[kkremitzki]

Yep, it should work fine with Python 3 in newer versions of Ubuntu, it's just that one of the most popular versions is the latest LTS 18.04, which is experiencing the problem. It works fine on current Debian Unstable so it should also work on Debian 10 and Ubuntu 19.04 or newer, at the least. Also PyCAM is GPL3 which would prevent its inclusion in FreeCAD's main code.

[RatonLaveur]

Thank you for dispelling confusion. I had not realized efforts had already been expanded in porting OCL to Py3. Feel a bit stupid now. And thanks for clarifying the PyCam situation. There's a room for it and PathWB in the world. I know at least one professional job shopper who uses both for different purposes.

[kkremitzki]

Thank you for dispelling confusion. I had not realized efforts had already been expanded in porting OCL to Py3. Feel a bit stupid now.

Hah, don't worry about it! This is a high-difficulty, low-shame environment.

[sliptonic]

As for completely different options, i have heard that the PyCam team is working on Python3 compatibility. Although i do not know if politically, administratively or technically it would make sense to reach out. Politcally because i don't know if they want to have anything to do with the FreeCAD community or if the PathWB contributors feel that it's worthwhile, administratively because I don't know if there are licensing issues (apparently OCL had such issues before), and technically because i don't really realize whether PyCam would bring an improvement to the PathWB. Or even be compatible.

Either way it's worth having this discussion and I'm sure that the likes of Sliptonic, Russ (you mlampert), JoshM, sgrogan and others are already thinking of the future with Python3.

I've had conversations with some of the PyCam guys over the years. They're good people.
PyCAM is GPL3 so not a great fit for us. I don't know if it got beyond the experiment stage but they were playing with opencamlib for surfacing and waterline strategies.

[quick61]

OCL is not incompatible with Python3. Markus and others worked to port it to python3 last year. The issue we're seeing is with packaging.
I had to entirely ditch my Linux Mint installation and switch to debian to get it to install, but once installed, it works as expected.

OCL also has no license problems. Anders Wallin (the originator of both OpenCamLib and OpenVoronoi) agreed to convert both projects to LGPL. Agreement was sought and granted from all contributors and the projects were relicensed last year.

https://github.com/aewallin/opencamlib/issues/28
https://github.com/aewallin/openvoronoi/issues/35

Ah, I remember that now, it's just incompatible with my Py3. My bad, and I've evidently gotten confused with some other issue. Thanks for getting me straight on this. To many things rattling around in my head.

[Wsk8]

On Ubuntu you can just add this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~neomilium/+archive/ubuntu/cam
Then install opencamlib

mfg

[sliptonic]

On Ubuntu you can just add this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~neomilium/+archive/ubuntu/cam
Then install opencamlib

Not Python3

[sgrogan]

Either way it's worth having this discussion and I'm sure that the likes of Sliptonic, Russ (you mlampert), JoshM, sgrogan and others are already thinking of the future with Python3.

PY3 ocl has been in the Windows 0.19_pre builds for a few weeks. Rus4262 provided me with a working ocl.pyd.

I still haven't been successful building it myself yet. I'm having trouble with CMake clinging with a death grip to my Conda installed python.exe no matter how many times I point to the one in the libpack. CMake also refuses to find libboost-python no matter how many times I tell it where the library is I suspect some weakness in ocl's CMake, and believe this is probably also the culprit on Ubuntu 18.04, but I don't have a working Ubuntu at the moment to test.

Also I think we (the packagers) will be moving towards using Pybind11 instead of boost-python, because Pybind11 is header only (and more full featured) so easier to maintain. wmayer and looo ported area, area-native, and flatmesh to work with both. When kreso-t introduced Adaptive Path he also made sure it was compatible with both. I wonder if someone would be interested in porting ocl to Pybind11? On Win building boost-python in debug mode, and any debug lib that depends on it is a PITA, although apeltaure was able to succeed in the latest (12.1.2) libpack.

If this is not working on win, please ping me.

[easyw-fc]

If this is not working on win, please ping me.

Hi @sgrogan
I just want to thank you for your great work in packaging for windows...
I have just moved my home pc to Linux and I having some issues that I was not used to have at all...
Your work for letting users to play with FC on winz both for stable and dev release is great and just works flawlessly...
Thx!
PS I have not tested directly OpenCamLib on windows, but I suppose it is working because I don't get the Path WB errors I have on Linux ...

Code: Select all

 import ocl

just work fine on winz and instead fails on my linux mint environment (I'm on py3 on both environments...)