CAD on Linux: a case study

Warning: this review is currently "work in progress". I'm updating it.


Hi folks, I'm currently working on a little task (some plants 2.5D, you can see some of them on my flickr portfolio http://www.flickr.com/photos/pietrograndi/sets/72157622248043397/).
Actually I rarely accept this kind of work, but I thought this could be an hard test for CAD on my linux laptop for a rainy Sunday :-)
So, let's test it.


Input files format: Autocad 2012 DWG
Converted to DXF 2007 with Autocad WS on Chrome - Linux Ubuntu 11.10 x64




FreeCad http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Main_Page

• no DWG support
• ok DXF support
• crash on a 1.6Mb DXF
• unable to use it, I think it's the worst cad I've used on Linux

LibreCad http://librecad.org/cms/home.html

• no DWG support
• ok DXF support
• crash on a 1.6Mb DXF
• unable to use it, too slow

QCad http://www.ribbonsoft.com/en/

2.0.5-free version

• no DWG support
• ok DXF support
• it works, but I'm a registered user: why couldn't I use the commercial version???

QCad http://www.ribbonsoft.com/en/

3rc2 - commercial version

• unable to run (tgz and bin packages)
• error: ./qcad-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libGLU.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
• I've buyed it in 2011 and use it on windows 
• in the official forum this issues are "Discussion moved to bugtracker: "  and of course, nothing changes.

• UPDATE:
• I have to apologize with Ribbonsoft: on their website I've found this solution: "Ubuntu 11.04 64bit requires package "ia32-libs" to be installed."
• installing "ia32-libs" through Ubuntu Software Center solved the issue
• Ok DWG support - Autocad 2012 - VERY GOOD!

At the moment I'm working on QCad 3rc5, commercial version.

As soon as I'll terminate my works I'll post an update. I usually use it on Windows.


here's a screenshot:

UPDATE:
Finally I've found QCad really useful and reliable: for about 30€ you got a good software. Obviously, you won't think to substitute Autocad, but for a 3D artist who use CAD only for cleaning and export purposes is the best choice in my opinion. It's just a bit slow in viewport but not so bad.


note on other products:
LibreCad and FreeCad were unusable for my work.
I've tryed Draftsight on Windows and I think it's one of the best but I was unable to find it for Linux 64 (can someone suggest me were I can find it?) and it's not free for commercial use.
AutocadWS is really cool and free but it's good only for opening and converting DWG files.
I wish to test BricsCad but anyway it's too expensive.
BRL-CAD: I'd like to have the time to compile and test it. Maybe in the future...

Pietro