Archimedes (CAD)

From Encoresoup - The Ultimate Guide to Free/Open Source Software

Archimedes - "The Open CAD" - (aka Arquimedes) is a computer-aided design (CAD) program being developed with direct input from architects and architecture firms. With this design philosophy, the developers hope to create software better suited for architecture than the currently widely used AutoCAD, and other available CAD software.[1] The program is free software released under the GNU General Public License.

Contents 1 Features 1.1 Integration with other CAD Systems 2 Development 2.1 History 2.1.1 Timeline 2.2 Migration to Eclipse RCP in version 0.5x 3 External links

[edit] Features

• Basic drawing tools
  • Lines, Polylines, Arcs and Circles
  • Editable Text
  • Explode
  • Offset
• Advanced CAD functions
  • Filleting
  • Area measurement
• Miscellaneous
  • Autosave
  • SVG export
  • English, Portuguese, and Italian language support

[edit] Integration with other CAD Systems

Archimedes uses its own XML-based open format, which resembles SVG. It does not yet include support for other CAD formats, but DXF support is planned.

[edit] Development

Archimedes is written in Java, and the latest version runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux/Unix based systems, and might run on platforms that have are supported by LWJGL and a Java Virtual machine on version 1.5.0 or later.

[edit] History

The Archimedes Project started as a collaboration between a group of programmers and architecture students at the University of São Paulo, in Brazil, in 2005. The project is currently being worked on as free and open source software. There is a team of students from the University working on it as collaborators under the coordination of Hugo (project leader) but everyone is free to contribute with plugins and/or patches.

[edit] Timeline

• Archimedes was registered as a SourceForge.net project on 12 July 2005.
• The last stable pre-RCP version was 0.16.0, released on 23 October 2006.
• The first stable version after the RCP migration was 0.50.0, released on 25 April 2007.
• The latest stable version is 0.56.0, which was released on 19 Jun 2008.

[edit] Migration to Eclipse RCP in version 0.5x

A migration to the Eclipse Rich Client Platform in versions 0.5x has greatly improved the user interface model and stability, but some of the functionality from the last pre-RCP version is still being transferred. The latest stable version (0.56.0) moved this process a step closer by adding intersection and open/save back.

[edit] External links

• Archimedes Home Page
• Archimedes on SourceForge.net
• Hugo Corbucci's Blog (Archimedes Project Lead)
• SVN Repository