irclog2html for #brlcad on 20060701

00:04.24 ``Erik ...
01:51.13 *** join/#brlcad IriX64 (n=IriX64@toronto-HSE-ppp4309415.sympatico.ca)
04:38.11 *** join/#brlcad digitalfredy (n=digitalf@200.71.62.161)
08:31.14 *** join/#brlcad ValarQ (i=vq@217-209-43-30-no48.tbcn.telia.com)
09:27.08 *** join/#brlcad pier_ (n=pier@151.56.253.163)
09:30.59 *** join/#brlcad chinamill (n=chinamil@h99n1c1o1110.bredband.skanova.com)
10:02.26 chinamill is there any nice support of making toolpaths and export to g-code with brlcad?
13:10.53 ``Erik I don't believe so... one of the developers was working on a seperate tool called "gcam" to generate gcode...
13:12.30 ``Erik http://gcam.js.cx/
13:47.58 chinamill Thanks for the tip Erik!
15:18.03 brlcad chinamill: i can corroborate that as well.. there's not a means to directly export g-code with brl-cad right now, would be cool if someone added the support but it's not a trivial task and not high on the priority list atm
15:18.54 *** join/#brlcad cradek (n=chris@pdpc/supporter/active/cradek)
15:19.07 brlcad hello cradek
15:19.11 cradek hi all
15:20.00 cradek I'm a newbie to brlcad, and sorry if everyone says this, but I'm having problems compiling it, is there documentation other than http://brlcad.org/build_CVS.html I should be looking at?
15:20.25 brlcad cradek: definitely -- see the INSTALL file for more comprehensive install instructions
15:20.25 cradek (I get an autoheader failure from autogen.sh in step 2)
15:20.48 brlcad there may also be a doc/README.[some_platform] file for your system with some details too
15:21.06 brlcad autoheader failure.. wow
15:21.27 brlcad run ./autogen.sh --verbose
15:21.49 cradek running, I'll put the output on pastebin
15:24.01 cradek http://pastebin.dyndns.org/305
15:24.03 brlcad for what it's worth, autogen.sh failure generally just means there's something wrong with your installed build tools (like an insufficient version of something in the GNU build system)
15:24.22 cradek I am a longtime unix developer but have little experience with auto tools
15:24.26 brlcad strictly speaking, if you're working from a source distribution (non-cvs), then you shouldn't need to run autogen.sh
15:24.51 brlcad i.e. if you have a big ass configure file in the top level, then you probably don't need to run autogen.sh
15:25.09 brlcad autogen.sh is only required if you've checked out from cvs or really just want to fully "start fresh"
15:25.15 cradek ok, I am using cvs so far, if this isn't easy to fix I'll use a source distribution
15:25.33 chinamill there is no rpm:s or similar?
15:26.04 brlcad ahh.. configure.ac:1: error: possibly undefined macro: dnl
15:27.05 brlcad that means autoconf install is somehow hosed or exceptionally old or running in 2.13 mode
15:27.28 cradek Checking autoconf version: autoconf --version
15:27.28 cradek Found GNU Autoconf version 2.59
15:28.00 brlcad this wouldn't happen to be debian sarge would it?
15:28.07 cradek ubuntu 5.10 breezy
15:28.14 cradek so ... sort of
15:28.32 brlcad debian used to have a very broken autoconf wrapper script
15:28.50 brlcad if you ran it directly, it would report the right version, then proceed to invoke the 2.13 autoconf
15:29.19 brlcad that's sort of what seems like is going on here too
15:29.54 brlcad another possibility is that you're simply missing the .m4 files for autoconf
15:30.18 cradek I'll remove the autoconf2.13 package and hope for the best then
15:30.28 brlcad if you have any other system that you can run autogen.sh on, that would also work -- it doesn't have to be run on the same machine, it can be run on any machine
15:31.49 brlcad have to run out for a bit, bbl if you still have more issues autogen.sh'ing
15:32.14 cradek no change when I remove autoconf2.13
15:32.45 brlcad then it must be some other misconfiguration (like the misplaced/uninstalled m4 files)
15:33.23 brlcad someone in #ubuntu might have an idea as it used to be incredibly frequent when sarge was popular
15:33.36 cradek ok thank you
15:33.40 brlcad np
15:39.10 *** join/#brlcad SWPadnos (n=Me@dsl245.esjtvtli.sover.net)
15:40.45 chinamill ``Erik: do you have a emailadress for the gcam person?
15:50.46 *** join/#brlcad fenn (n=fenn@adsl-66-72-65-111.dsl.bltnin.ameritech.net)
15:51.00 fenn yum yum
15:51.07 fenn so whats all this about gcam?
15:51.37 fenn is it one of the brlcad developers?
15:54.06 chinamill ``Erik said so
16:14.56 ``Erik phark, whud ah miss?
16:15.12 ``Erik the url doesn't have an email addy?
16:16.07 fenn theres no contact info or anything substantial on the web page at all
16:19.08 ``Erik huh
16:22.25 ``Erik I sent him an aim msg, *shrug* he might not want to be bugged about it, or he might be interested in soliciting ideas and/or effort... but I wanna verify with him before doin' anything, ok?
16:22.50 Twingy hey
16:23.28 chinamill ``Erik: he is more than welcome to join #emc
16:23.37 fenn it just seems weird to put up a webpage about an open source project and have no source code or download available
16:23.59 Twingy it says it'll be avail in aug
16:26.16 ``Erik heh
16:26.43 ``Erik :)
16:28.06 ``Erik twingy, you dont' have any wintergreen oil, do you?
16:29.17 Twingy no
16:29.41 Twingy got some WD40 though
16:30.03 ``Erik tried it, bolts won't budge
16:30.18 Twingy use a can of coke?
16:30.40 ``Erik haven't tried that yet... supposedly wintergreen is the best, and vinegar is really good, with coke being somewhere below vinegar
16:30.47 Twingy if you can figure out a way to let them soak in a pan for 30 minutes
16:31.04 Twingy duct tape it, whatever
16:31.14 ``Erik so I'm thinking about taking a cup of vinegar out with a brush, or mebbe rubber banding a soaked paper towel
16:31.24 fenn turpentine
16:31.32 fenn kroil is stupposed to be the best
16:31.57 Twingy what are you guys planning to use gcam for?
16:32.14 fenn making parts :)
16:32.20 ``Erik and my dad was a jet mechanic for 20 yrs and a car mechanic before that, so I kinda trust him when he says wintergreen is the hshizzle forrizle
16:32.35 ``Erik parts for what? :)
16:33.13 fenn well, a cnc machine, some hydraulic valves for a robot, turbine engine parts, foam cores for composite layup
16:33.20 fenn and on and on and on
16:33.47 ``Erik hobbyist? or work? (if you dont' mind my asking)
16:34.01 fenn i'm self employed but i dont make any money.. how's that
16:34.19 ``Erik ah, heh... "interested student" ;) *duck*
16:34.46 fenn though honestly gcam is not doing things the way i would have done them
16:34.59 ``Erik huh, mind if I ask?
16:35.36 fenn well the heart of a cam system is the toolpath planning algorithms
16:36.04 fenn he seems to be starting off with basic stuff like 3d rendering
16:36.28 ``Erik hm, 3d rendering, or basic object description?
16:36.56 ``Erik <-- kinda thinks that tool path is one of those problems that the machine can solve and optimize, just tell it what shape you want to have and let it figure the way to make it...
16:38.09 fenn i just think it would be smarter to use an already existing library for the 3d data structures and math
16:38.52 fenn that's why i was asking all these questions about brlcad's libbn and such
16:40.02 ``Erik math is well understood and reasonably easy to implement, tho... I mean, you can slap together solid vector and matrix functions in half a day of mindless work, so why induce a dependancy?
16:40.12 fenn lol
16:40.21 ``Erik <-- very much likes the idea of libraries, btw, is playing devils advocate
16:41.27 fenn is there any interest in STEP import for brlcad?
16:41.56 ``Erik in a decent operating system with a decent software install concept, dependancies are a non-issue... on fbsd, just type "make install" and it does it's think... :) I wouldn't mind seeing tcl and tk and itcl/itk, libpng, libz, etc ripped out of the brlcad distro...
16:42.07 ``Erik what's "step"? I'm quite ignyant on these things, btw...
16:42.23 fenn the file format to end all file formats
16:42.29 ``Erik my major contribution so far has been redoing the build system, I don't have the foggiest clue how to model shit :)
16:42.46 ``Erik that sounds... slightly biased.
16:42.56 fenn for cad systems, it's sorta XML and is extendable to cover all aspects of cad/cae/cam
16:43.23 ``Erik although I'm quite sure if someone were to provide the g-step and step-g program patch... it would be appreciated :)
16:43.33 SWPadnos fenn, have you actually seen a STEP file spec? (I thought you had to pay, like ISO standards)
16:43.59 fenn SWPadnos: there is a free "express schema" which is the basic xml description
16:44.05 SWPadnos ah, OK
16:44.08 fenn and also you can get preliminary standards for free
16:44.18 fenn i havent actually sat down and looked at either of them
16:45.05 fenn there is a nist project to convert express to xml
16:45.35 ``Erik interoperability is generally a good thing *shrug* if you wanna code, go to it, and we'll even help ya some by answering questions when we can... if what you produce isn't shit, it may get accepted into the project... :)
16:45.48 fenn heh thanks
16:46.02 fenn i'm pretty new to XML and 3d programming in general
16:49.14 ``Erik ok, if you have questions that you can't find through basic research, let us know, but dont' be offended if we tell you to go read manual XYZ :)
16:49.31 *** join/#brlcad IriX64 (n=IriX64@toronto-HSE-ppp4305091.sympatico.ca)
16:58.16 ``Erik (ohyeah, and if you do ask a question, be patient... it could be over 24 hours before you get a response... but some of us DO read all the backlog)
17:00.16 fenn are there logs of #brlcad anywhere?
20:01.36 brlcad Twingy: you see that bike?
20:03.16 brlcad fenn: yes, there is considerable interest in STEP import -- there was work that started on a step library about a year ago, but the lead guy pushing the effort disappeared
20:04.00 brlcad fenn: for what it's worth, we also have copies of the STEP standard that we can use for anything specifically related to BRL-CAD
20:04.16 brlcad (AP203, AP214, and a few others)
20:04.38 brlcad ~logs
20:04.39 ibot apt/ibot/jbot/purl all log to http://ibot.rikers.org/<channelname>/ where channelname is html encoded ie: %23debian | lines that start with a space are not shown | some channels have stats at http://ibot.rikers.org/stats/<channelname>.html.gz, or updated "nightly"
20:16.15 *** join/#brlcad dan_falck (n=danfalck@pool-71-111-76-8.ptldor.dsl-w.verizon.net)
20:19.08 brlcad howdy dan
20:19.52 brlcad seems as though much of #emc woke up today and decided to go on a field trip ..
20:21.02 dan_falck hi brlcad
20:21.08 dan_falck yes we did
20:21.26 dan_falck we are interested in gcam, which we think is related to brlcad
20:21.48 dan_falck fenn and SWPadnos probably are very interested
20:21.55 dan_falck cradek too
20:22.14 dan_falck Twingy, is gcam your program?
20:22.23 brlcad not really related to brl-cad other than it's Twingy's project and he's somewhat related to brl-cad ;)
20:22.34 dan_falck ok
20:22.44 dan_falck fenn, did you get that?
20:22.49 brlcad i.e. it shares no code or functionality, doesn't link to any of brl-cad's libs last I looked unless he changed something :)
20:23.29 dan_falck how are you doing these days?
20:23.37 brlcad pretty well, keeping busy
20:23.59 dan_falck same here. Taking a short break from building a deck
20:24.13 brlcad the blasted windows port took up an enormous amount of time, just starting to get back into more useful development
20:24.31 dan_falck we still don't use windows at the shop where I work
20:24.35 dan_falck OS X
20:24.39 dan_falck and linux
20:24.44 brlcad likewise
20:24.59 brlcad cept for the desk junkies, analysts
20:25.13 dan_falck makes it hard to find a CAM program, hence the intense interest in anythin cam related
20:25.15 brlcad but not the modelers, developers, and other tech
20:25.37 dan_falck the owner of our company said that we would NEVER use windows
20:25.42 dan_falck and so far so good
20:25.46 brlcad yeah, i was talking to him about making his g-code thing a more general purpose library so that I could hook into it in brl-cad
20:25.53 dan_falck cool
20:26.21 brlcad well, it would be cool -- depends how much interest gcam in general gets will probably determine if he does
20:26.51 fenn sorry i was ignoring irc due to a troll on another channel
20:26.58 brlcad yay, trolls
20:27.06 dan_falck probably about 20 people from #emc would be interested
20:27.20 brlcad how many of those 20 are users and how many are devs? :)
20:27.24 fenn ooo yes i wouldnt mind getting my hands on the "real" standard
20:27.38 fenn i've been drowning in complicated standard draft documents all day long
20:27.48 brlcad fenn: heh, you and half the industry
20:27.58 fenn its only like $60 isnt it?
20:28.07 brlcad those damn standards are rather expensive for just about any non-commercial use
20:28.14 dan_falck fenn could probably tell you how many are developers in the EMC group
20:28.32 fenn there are really only like 5 or 6 active developers
20:28.59 fenn everyone's in the same boat though
20:29.13 brlcad fenn: i forget the details, but the 5 or 6 APs of STEP that I have were somewhere in the 1-2k range, iso lists the costs iirc
20:30.00 brlcad which is one part how it's cool that we at least have them to go on, makes it a heck of a lot easier to make an open source library out of them in a manner that anyone could then use
20:30.13 brlcad without needing to buy their own copy
20:30.42 fenn oh wow
20:30.56 dan_falck fenn: so now we know that gcam is Twingy's program.
20:31.19 fenn ap203 and ap214 are the ones i was interested in
20:31.25 fenn and step-nc whatever that is
20:31.36 fenn looking at the file format it doesnt seem too complicated really
20:31.40 brlcad to get the COMPLETE iso spec for STEP, it's roughly in the 10-15k range and would fill at least one 20' library shelf if printed
20:31.50 fenn its all the buzzwordage that is hard to dig through
20:32.09 brlcad 203 and 214 are by far the most interesting, though little ones like 11 and 21 become handy when writing a parser
20:32.53 fenn i would like to make a portable library that could be used in more than just brlcad
20:33.34 brlcad it's a shame that the dev that was working on it ran off, he was making good progress
20:34.26 brlcad had taken over the nist parser, updated to the latest step spec, got it working more cross-platform, got it parsing some example step files
20:34.52 fenn it wasnt terry hancock was it?
20:34.56 brlcad all pretty low level still, no hook functionality
20:35.15 fenn i've been reading this over and over, trying to psych myself up: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/free_matter_economy_4?page=0%2C2
20:35.41 brlcad heh, it was a terry
20:35.46 fenn awesome
20:35.53 brlcad but afaik, his last name wasn't hancock
20:36.07 brlcad ridder according to sf project account
20:36.11 fenn oh
20:36.29 fenn he wrote a bunch of stuff about a "gnu cad/cam" a long time ago
20:37.10 brlcad vaguely remember
20:37.29 brlcad i've read some other stuff from hancock, mostly good ideas but definitely not ridder
20:37.32 fenn oh man sourceforge is so pathetic
20:38.10 brlcad ridder is a rather bitter guy that doesn't like object oriented designs in general, so somehow I doubt he'd be pushing for a python layer that converts step to xml :)
20:39.12 brlcad he seemed to like lower level libraries, straightforward simple C apis
20:39.36 fenn i actually dont know which is more appropriate for a file format library
20:40.22 brlcad i like and agree with most of hancock's ideas, though there's a reason step wasn't done in xml (and it's not because it predated xml or anything)
20:40.43 fenn why is that, do you know?
20:40.49 brlcad the spirit of that article I like, though a lot of the technical detail is less than appealing
20:41.16 fenn making a new language to describe a file format seems kinda overboard
20:41.25 fenn or maybe i'm missing something
20:41.44 brlcad several reasons it wasn't but probably the most significant one that comes to mind is that step is effectively meant to be the combination of every CAD/CAM/CADD vendor's needs
20:42.18 fenn and xml isnt complex enough? :)
20:42.35 brlcad and for a huge subset of those area domains, encoding their data into xml is a non-starter due to utter information explosion (about two orders of magnitude)
20:42.47 brlcad express is pretty complicated in itself
20:42.57 brlcad but it's somewhat more condensed than xml
20:42.59 fenn i thought the schema was just a description of the file format
20:43.36 fenn is there like "introduction to the STEP thingy" document somewhere
20:43.48 brlcad yeah, there's an AP for it that you can buy :)
20:44.12 brlcad there's minimal good on-line resources on step
20:44.30 brlcad a few industry articles give an intro on it, should be easily found with a search
20:44.36 fenn i've skimmed through 23 out of 1600 folders..
20:44.50 fenn i read some modern machine shop articles
20:45.17 fenn in fact i dont even care why they did it
20:45.19 brlcad helps if you toss in the numerical standard id
20:45.23 brlcad i.e. iso 10303
20:45.35 fenn yeah those 1600 are all about 10303
20:45.56 fenn http://www.tc184-sc4.org/SC4_Open/SC4_Work_Products_Documents/STEP_(10303)/
20:46.18 brlcad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303
20:47.34 brlcad ug, sc4 is an iso parrot, that's article's about as well written as the step APs themselves
20:48.21 brlcad this one isn't too bad: http://www.mel.nist.gov/msidlibrary/doc/jcise1.pdf
20:49.30 brlcad nist has a load of useful information, they dumped a lot of time and resources into step about a decade ago that they have given to the community since
20:49.38 fenn hm - the development of step is one of the largest efforts ever undertaken by ISO
20:49.49 brlcad i'd believe that
20:50.44 brlcad the standard really is utterly enormous and complex as it covers just about every single aspect of dealing with a "product"
20:50.57 fenn i've noticed :)
20:51.02 brlcad from designing it to creating it to selling and distributing or analysing it, etc
20:51.31 brlcad not just the computer geometric representation, that's just one small part of it
20:51.48 brlcad (hence the 203 and 214.. there really are hundreds of protocols)
20:54.59 fenn sometimes i think they must be joking with some of these flowcharts
20:56.36 brlcad sadly, they usually are not
20:57.54 brlcad since it's almost entirely industry driven, "most" presentations and write-ups aren't meant to be "easy" or "clear" -- they're worked on by people that are paid to do so and often the more verbose or the more obscure, the better they're doing their job ;)
20:58.19 fenn well it makes me laugh regardless
20:58.30 fenn maybe i'll feel differently once i get my hands dirty
20:58.50 brlcad just seeing the iso spec makes me cry sometimes
20:59.12 brlcad reading it makes baby seals die I think
20:59.43 fenn do you notice signs of rectal bleeding after a protracted coding session :)
21:00.15 brlcad hehe
21:26.41 Twingy yea I saw the bike
21:26.51 Twingy it'll be a while before its out though
21:27.24 Twingy and unless they are using non-standard materials for the proton exchange membrane then it's likely to cost $10k or so
21:27.46 Twingy and all that will get you is about 1HP
21:36.24 brlcad that's odd.. it's supposed to be shipping already
21:36.42 Twingy that would be company suicide
21:36.56 Twingy they are looking for manuf partners
21:37.09 brlcad it was in a best new product of the year list
21:37.11 Twingy and like I said, unless they can figure out how to get rid of the platinum and graphite manuf process...
21:37.23 Twingy it's a great product, just not practical from an economic stand point
21:37.38 brlcad i'd get one even at 10k
21:37.52 Twingy I would to if I had the money
21:37.56 Twingy *too
21:37.58 brlcad unless it was unusable on the interstate, but it didn't seem like that was the case
21:38.20 Twingy wait a few years, a substitute catalyst will be researched
21:38.31 Twingy I bet you that bike doesn't exceed 30mph
21:38.33 brlcad you'll have it all sorted out by then? :)
21:38.41 Twingy me? no, some university
21:38.45 brlcad heh
21:39.02 Twingy to give you an idea
21:39.06 Twingy fuelcellstore.com
21:39.12 Twingy look at the prices of those fuel cell stacks
21:39.18 Twingy that store skims about 10% off the top
21:39.50 Twingy 1 HP on that will get you 25 - 30mph (~750W)
21:40.00 Twingy look how much a 750W fuel cell costs
21:40.28 Twingy now factor in the cost of the bike and shipping
21:41.07 Twingy figure you have some group in china building those for $5/hr
21:41.28 Twingy best case scenario you're at $10k in a mass production
21:41.45 brlcad most bikes are 10-30k
21:42.05 brlcad so for something "high end" niche like this, I wouldn't be surprised if it were 30-50k
21:42.08 Twingy you can get many gas crotch rocket bikes for $5-$6k
21:42.15 Twingy and they do 100mph, not 25 - 30 mph
21:42.15 brlcad not new
21:42.19 Twingy yes new
21:42.28 Twingy I almost bought a suzuki
21:42.34 Twingy I'll pull up the url if you like
21:42.38 brlcad nah
21:42.39 Twingy I actually sat on it
21:42.44 Twingy went to bel air to check it out
21:42.48 brlcad for 6k?
21:42.51 Twingy right next to the mexican place
21:42.54 Twingy $5,995
21:42.58 brlcad that's crazy.. how many cycles?
21:42.59 Twingy yellow and blue
21:43.16 Twingy they have about 50 in that shop
21:43.33 Twingy gets ~50mpg
21:44.09 Twingy the #1 problem with fuel cells right now is the catalyst, platinum is just too expensive
21:44.50 Twingy I am 100% confident fuel cells will take off, but they need to be re-engineered slightly
21:45.06 Twingy they are 2 - 4x more energy dense than lithium polymer batteries
21:45.17 Twingy 1800psi - 3200psi respectively
21:46.09 Twingy and that's at 50% efficiency (standard)
21:47.10 Twingy btw, investing in platinum over the next few years is not a bad idea
21:56.52 Twingy time for my run, bbl
23:00.54 Twingy back
23:19.04 dan_falck Twingy: is gcam yours?
23:20.49 Twingy yes
23:21.46 dan_falck there are a few of us from the #emc channel interested in it
23:22.02 Twingy great
23:22.12 dan_falck so august release then?
23:22.13 Twingy I use it on my taig cnc
23:22.39 dan_falck cool
23:22.50 Twingy yea, some time in aug, I'll be doing alot of traveling in the next month, AZ, IL, MA, NJ
23:23.05 Twingy 6 weeks actually
23:23.31 dan_falck would you be game for a few us playing with it before then?
23:23.57 Twingy I can't guarantee it compiles on anything other than freebsd right now
23:24.17 dan_falck that's ok. we're used to the challenge
23:24.23 Twingy it requires gtk+, opengl, automake/conf
23:24.32 dan_falck ok
23:24.48 Twingy k, poke me tonight, I've been working through a todo list all day on it
23:24.58 dan_falck ok thanks
23:25.15 Twingy I'll give you the 5 minute break down on what it is and what it is not
23:25.19 dan_falck fenn will be happy too ;)
23:25.22 dan_falck ok
23:25.46 Twingy don't expect it to rival mastercam or anything, ttyl
23:25.57 dan_falck that's ok
23:27.41 dan_falck I need to go out and work on the deck. bbl

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