Surfaces??

[jparch]

I really like the sub D surfaces in Blender and even much more so with an experimental version of B-Mesh, I am not really a fan of T-Splines however I think Rhino should just have that capability by design and not plug in. Is that sort of thing hard to achieve in terms of code? Could it be done with python and say an API?

so basically just keeping all modeling in blender or rhino at the moment and coming up with a smooth workflow? I too have been tooling around the blender 2.5 API and it is amazing I have started on a Add_on for free cad that would import freecad in theory. I tried to build FreeCad with python 3.1 but yeah its a no go. Any thoughts on that?

I really dont know much about real code work and contacted Steve whom is doing the python API work for Rhino about an Open Nurbs python wrapper he created way back but its incomplete and has been for many years. Are there any plans to support direct Rhino Files? I know .blend is too much to ask and if one could import freecad then getting the needed geometry would not be an issue.

[yorik]

I think importing stuff from blender to freecad is very easy, because both are able to export/import anything via python. Making a freecad exporter in blender is probably easier than a blender importer in freecad, since freecad itself is importable inside blender, so we can create our .fcstd file super easily. I've heard rumors that blender could also become importable in python scripts, so the contrary might become possible too. But yes, the problem at the moment is python3.

I don't know much about rhino, but I would say to resume: If the file format is documented or a python API that can export rhino contents exists, then importing in freecad is possible, otherwise not. But looking at the API ( http://www.rhino3d.com/5/ironpython/index.html ) I would say it looks like it has everything needed... The best path is probably to do the same as with blender, export a .fcstd file from rhino itself.

[jriegel]

Mhh,
maybe its time to think of a Python 3 port of FreeCAD. But Im not sure if all the modules (like pythonOCC or Pivy) are ported and available.

[tanderson69]

That Video is really cool. The technique they show is very resent, called direct modeling. I've seen some
Betas of CoCreate which use that. Its a further step beyond feature driven modeling.

sorry to nitpick, but what you are really seeing is the shape studio license (big bucks). The face modifications also become features in your modeling history. I think you guys are right in the involvement of blender, as my first unigraphics license file with shape studio actually mentioned alias wavefront.