Linux, CAD, and the way forward

[Tim B]

Those regular followers of this forum will notice that I post controversial threads very rarely, but here's one anyway.

I have recently moved over to Mandrake Linux 10.1 running KDE 3.2 from Windows XP. Having moved, I am now at a loss as to why I ever used Windows XP, or indeed, convinced myself it was worth it. The only reasons I can think of is that 'everyone else uses it' and that it runs Rhino 3.0. Now, on the face of it, this is academic, after all, Linux allows a dual-boot so surely just run Linux and Windows. That is one solution, but it is time-consuming to re-boot every time I want to apply one of my surface routines (written in fortran, under linux) and I'm damned if I'm going to pay microsoft for an environment as nice as the free one in Linux.

So here's the problem... I only want to run Rhino in Windows. yes, I have a copy of windows, but installing it is a pain because it doesn't like living with Linux. The Rhino FAQ is utterly un-helpful, telling us that Rhino will never be ported to Linux, and there's no way of doing it either. I have read though that some people have got Rhino running under Linux, using wine.

The purpose of this thread (and I'm sorry about the long introduction) is both to try to establish a way of running Rhino in Linux (that anyone can do). Or find out the support for a Linux version.

I hope we can get this to run...

Tim B.

[nevd]

As a matter of interest, are you successfully running any other CAD packages on Linux eg LinuxCAD as I and some others are thinking of going this way?

Thanks

nevd

[redcoopers]

Try http://www.netraverse.com/

It doesn't support all directX applications, but I find that it is useful nonetheless.

[Tim B]

No, I'm not running any other CAD software on Linux, but I can't see that there would be any problem in running the Linux-specific programs, they just don't have Rhino's capability (in general).

As it stands, I've spent an evening trying to get Rhino running and I am confident that the only problem is the method it uses to verify the license. If I can solve this, I'll post a HowTo on this thread, and on my website. I will also inform McNeel + Co.

Tim B.

[Tim B]

NeTransverse looks like it would do a good job, unfortunately it is not free. The wine (www.winehq.org) is free, and this is the system I'm using, as I say, it will install, but fails to find the license.

Tim B.

[RuKK]

Always nice to see people defecting to linux

I just finished convincing rhino to run under wine myself, so maybe I can be of some assistance.. I dont have access to rhino 3 yet, but 2 works great after a little fooling around. First off, make sure you have the latest version of wine. Shouldnt make much difference, but I'm working with Debian Sarge. You'll also need OpenGL working with wine before you can get rhinoceros to run (test with glxgears).

Start by making the rhino setup file executable for user (chmod a+x or modify etc/fstab with a user flag for /dev/cdrom).

$ wine setupfile.exe

Setp is a little slow to start, but install starts up and follows through with no errors using default options.

Remove (or rename) opengl32.dll from the ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system directory, if it
exists.

Move the following files into your fake windows/system directory. You'll need to get these files from a windows 95/98 installation, or just google for them.
rpcrt4.dll
ole32.dll
oleaut32.dll
shlwapi.dll
commctrl.dll
comctl32.dll

Add the following to your wine config file:

[AppDefaults\\rhino.exe\\DllOverrides]
"ole32" = "native"
"oleaut32" = "native"
"commctrl" = "native"
"comctl32" = "native"
"rpcrt4" = "native"
"shlwapi" = "native"
"imagehlp" = "native"

Rhino gives me a error upon starting, but is perfectly useful after I hit ok. Only bug I've
found so far, is that double clicking on the perspective name to zoom out gives you a black
screen. Not a big deal, as the 4 viewports button works perfectly.

If you have any questions, post away or give me a shout on AIM. I've attached a screenshot of rhino 2 running in linux. Hope this helps, and good luck,

James

[MikeJohns]

Rukk
Thanks for you posting.
How do you get on with the license manger?

Ironically a lot of high end CAD packages are actually ported to Windows from UNIX and we have to run software to handle the unix system calls.

[RuKK]

I have no problem with license manager, although I would attribute that to my use of rhino 2, as opposed to 3. I may play with the demo of 3 later, if it also has the issue.

[Tim B]

Sorry for my continued inactivity on this subject but I have had quite a bit of work on. The stage I have got to is that Rhino threatens to run but falls over at the license stage. I will implement the dlls as suggested, when I have a little time to do it. This may induce NetObjects Fusion to work properly as well. I fear though that I will still need an installation of Win XP as Linux doesn't support the Lexmark X1180 natively and no drivers have yet been written... anyone fancy a programming job?

It will probably take a while, but we should be able to get there,

Tim B.

[Robert Miller]

I too greatly prefer LINUX to Windows. Perusing the solutions offered above... the UNIX work-arounds, etc., ... seems like a lot of trouble to me, just to dump Windows.

Why not run Rhino 3 on Mac OS X?
(No wish to start a Mac vs. PC thread... just asking )
It seems like this might solve many of your problems.

1. Rhino web site states it will run on Mac using VirtualPC.
2. Mac OS X is UNIX, after all. So you can run your UNIX scripts/applets, as you are now doing, and write more, as you wish.
3. Or.. consider switch to TouchCAD, which may (from my admittedly inexperienced perspective) actually offer some advantages over Rhino.

Robert

[RuKK]

If Rhino3 will run under virtualpc on mac osx, then theres no reason it wont run under vmware in linux. Unfortunetly, vmware isnt free software like wine. As for why run linux over mac osx.. when I can install mac osx on my cheap x86 hardware, I shall do so!

If you want to run windows programs under linux with wine, you have to accept the fact that that is about the minimum of configuration that will be required to get most software to work. I agree its not a very good system, but its improving.

I'm not sure about the licensing hangup in rhino 3. I dont experience it myself in rhino 2. Nobody appears to have gotten rhino 3 working with wine yet, as far as my google searches and forum browsing can tell.. But we shall see

-James

[Tim B]

I agree with James on this one... my disgust with windows doesn't warrant me swapping my x86 Laptop for something that will run MacOS (certainly not considering the required spec)

Hence, I quote:
TouchCAD 3.0 is available for MacOS X, MacOS Classic, and Windows 98, NT, 2000, ME and XP.

I don't have a Mac. what's more, I don't want my 4 Operating system network (Win 95,Win XP, Mandrake and Risc OS 3.7) to become a 5 OS network for reasons of convenience. However, there may be a saving grace, and I am going to explore it now with a demo version. If it will run under windows AND mac, it suggests a different licensing system, and thus it may work. However, it is not certain, and I don't know if it will do what I want it to anyway.

I'll try it none the less,

Tim B.

[Tim B]

Ok, well it runs... It asks me for a page system (ugh...) and when I discover how to use surfaces it is so slow it makes me want to re-write the code myself. I'm sorry but my b-spline hull design software runs faster on a 40MHz A7000!!!! I can't save or export from the demo, but looking through the menus there is lno obvious option to allow me to evaluate control points and weights, or indeed to any way to make it do it. It has two advantages though (as far as I've seen) firstly, it runs on wine with no extra DLLs and no Liscense problem, and secondly it will flatten surfaces... handy, but not what I was interested in doing.

Sorry this is a bad review, I may not have explored it far enough, but what I diid explore I found rather cumbersome. I'm also concerned at the price, $310 (USD) for the academic version... Rhino was £120 when I bought it, even if the exchange rate was $2 to £1 Rhino is only $240 for the academic version (I admit the full TouchCAD license is cheaper, but I'm not interested in paying full price). The home-page is www.TouchCad.com , a visit to the gallery looks impressive enough, but it is no-where near the quality of Rhino's output, even if you can flatten each surface automatically.

These are just my findings and opinions,

Tim B.

[RuKK]

I've traced the license manager error in rhino 3 to a problem nwlink.vxd. The debugger output being:

fixme:vxd:VXD_Open Unknown/unsupported VxD L "nwlink.vxd".

Under win98 mode, wine doesnt support vxd files period, and when set to win2k mode, or nt40 mode for that matter, just pops up a error about not being able to communicate with license manager. If nwlink can be convinced to work, or rhino convinced to operate without it, I think it'll run.

-RuKK

[ludesign]

Originally Posted by Tim B

Ok, well it runs... It asks me for a page system (ugh...) and when I discover how to use surfaces it is so slow it makes me want to re-write the code myself. I'm sorry but my b-spline hull design software runs faster on a 40MHz A7000!!!! I can't save or export from the demo, but looking through the menus there is lno obvious option to allow me to evaluate control points and weights, or indeed to any way to make it do it. It has two advantages though (as far as I've seen) firstly, it runs on wine with no extra DLLs and no Liscense problem, and secondly it will flatten surfaces... handy, but not what I was interested in doing.

Sorry this is a bad review, I may not have explored it far enough, but what I diid explore I found rather cumbersome. I'm also concerned at the price, $310 (USD) for the academic version... Rhino was £120 when I bought it, even if the exchange rate was $2 to £1 Rhino is only $240 for the academic version (I admit the full TouchCAD license is cheaper, but I'm not interested in paying full price). The home-page is www.TouchCad.com , a visit to the gallery looks impressive enough, but it is no-where near the quality of Rhino's output, even if you can flatten each surface automatically.

These are just my findings and opinions,

Tim B.

It looks like you are using it in the wrong way. If you instead of using lots of individual surfaces use Spline based surfaces you will find that it runs much quicker.

I easily prefer TouchCAD for hull shaping.

A TouchCAD academic license is $248 and does not require any marine specific or unfolding add-ons.

I'm not sure what you mean by output. I would say that that is similar when it comes to OpenGL rendering though TouchCAD has more options, especially with the 3.5. If you mean renderings, you need an external rendering plug in both cases. I use Artlantis, which costs about the same as the built in plug in Rhino but you can essentially use any rendering program as TouchCAD exports well files well adopted for export to such programs.