StephenK Log
Status - Done: Basic D3D FreeCAD workbench, FreeCAD Workbench 101 instructional To Do: Workbench that inserts parts, OpenPLM?, Distrowatch for OSE Linux, Dev orientation Blocks: Time available
Sun Oct 8, 2017
Made an attempt at importing a part into the same document window, but it hasn't worked yet. Still trying to figure out how to do it and maintain the ability to modify the parameters of the part(s). The Assembly2 workbench has a "muxAssembly" operation when importing subassemblies, but it turns the entire fcstd file into a single part that can't be adjusted (like length of rod, etc.)
Also, added commented examples for different possible commands to try for resizing a part. Change the imported/opened file to the entire D3D_CAD_Assembly, but it looks like the parts are inconsistently made between axes (unless I'm using old part files). Some can have the rod/cylinders modified because they have a 'Cylinder' part for that (e.g., D3D_16_Sub-Assembly_X_Axis_Stripped), but others cannot (e.g., D3D_16_Sun-Assembly_Y_Axis_Left_Stripped). It seems each of the axes should be very consistent in grouping/structure, right? May have to adjust the parts some in order to be able to script against them. Also, the single piece frame is unmodifiable as a sketch in the imported document, using the Assembly2 approach. It is a simple part, so it may be easier to redraw it within the workbench code. Once I figure out the part import, it may also be easier to import parts of the axes (e.g., end stops) and then create the parts that are variable length, like the rods and belts, manually in the workbench code.
Wed Sep 20, 2017
Looked a little into PLM. DocDokuPLM and Redmine. I've used Redmine before, it's pretty good. It has repo, wiki, document, issues, gannt, lots of stuff. Not sure if it handles CAD files well, though.
Sun Sep 17, 2017
Added FreeCAD_Programming_101 instructional.
Sat Sep 16, 2017
Got a basic part import to happen in D3D workbench. A lot more to do there though. I did learn quite a bit about how to work with FreeCAD scripting. Posted some links [1]
Sun Sep 10, 2017
Created a new workbench getting started example to serve as a reference workbench starting point and allow development on the D3D workbench to continue separately.
Debugging VirtualBox screen resolution issue in the latest ISO (4.5). Found an X-Server package that exists in 4.5 build, but not 4-28. I built a new ISO without that package, tested in VirtualBox and have full screen resolution now. Not 100% conclusive, but it shows that it's likely a software configuration issue that needs to be tracked between releases.
Created repo for a script to executer the ISO build steps https://github.com/skaiser/OSELinux_ISO_Script
Sat Sep 9, 2017
Basic workbench with icon and button working inside FreeCAD -- Video | Code
Added GNU Licenses page to clarify LGPL vs GPL for use in FreeCAD workbench
2 hours "study hall"
Interesting findings from today
Github already has a part viewer if the file is an STL.
FreeCAD can execute commands without a GUI How can we use this?
Fri Sep 8, 2017
New developer orientation setup stuff
Tue Sep 5, 2017
Github repo for D3D FreeCAD Workbench
Sat Sep 2, 2017
2 hours (total)
Doing admin work to create accounts and publish/document work on the wiki.
Final Developer Test FreeCAD file File:OSE-DeveloperTest-StephenK.fcstd
Fri Sep 1, 2017
4 hours (total)
30 minutes looking at FreeCAD assemblies before having an epiphany
2 hours making practice version for test. Don't give up!
1.5 hours recording video with Vokoscreen and editing in Kdenlive. Recording the assembly took about 30 minutes, and I was scared Vokoscreen would crash before the end, but it worked great! :) Kdenlive was pretty easy to use to, after watching a quick tutorial video on YouTube.
Wed Aug 30, 2017
5 hours (total)
I had tried sharing a folder with the my Linux VM to my host OS, but had trouble finding it. It turns out that the "automount" didn't work and I needed to run:
mount -t vboxsf share /dev/<mount_point>
I also tweaked my VM settings to this because I was having performance issues:
2 processors
4GB RAM
30GB HDD
64MB video memory
Enabling 3D acceleration turned out to be a bad idea.
1.5 hours playing around in FreeCAD
1.5 hours figuring out the part layout. It turns out I could have just looked at other videos, but it was a fun experiment nonetheless as there are several different ways to do it.
30 minutes trying to figure out why my part kept disappearing when moving and rotating from Draft workbench
1 hour fiddling with Assembly2 in FreeCAD before trying to upgrade to OSE Linux 4.3 and see if that FreeCAD version was any better, but then ran into DNS issues on the new 4.3 build.
30 minutes reading docs for (the Assembly Workbench) because what I really wanted to do was to build a "body" with the part layouts that construct the corner and 2 different sides, clone those bodies, rotate them and be done, but I couldn't figure out how to do it and this workbench isn't installed, so I decided to leave it for now.
Tue Aug 29, 2017
1 hour (total)
Reading over FreeCAD docs.
Sun Aug 27, 2017
3 hours (total)
Downloaded and installed OSE Linux.
I had forgotten that my Windows laptop won't boot from USB, so I installed on a VirtualBox virtual machine instead. During Virtual box install, I was informed that I needed 26GB of space. This was somewhat shocking to me since most Linux distros I've used in the past need less than 8GB, but I was able to resize the VM hard disk to 30GB using the following command:
VBoxManage modifyhd ~/VirtualBox\path\to\vm\file.vdi --resize 30720
I'm listing 3 hours for this since I also messed around with installing FreeCAD natively on my Mac laptop and the newest OSE Linux version (4.3) on a VM there too. I found that DNS did not work correctly on the latest OSE Linux image, so I reverted to installing the 4-28 image. I also spent time trying to burn the image to DVD, so I could use my Windows laptop instead of a VM, but have so far given up on this since the VM seems to be working fine (and because I dropped my portable DVD drive :))
Started FreeCAD 101 while Linux install was progressing. It was not immediately intuitive how to find the 8-hole square tubing part to be used in the test, but I guess that's part of the test? :) No idea, but maybe this is a good solution? OpenPLM
I started messing with FreeCAD at 6:00pm and stopped at 6:06pm due to frustration. Haha