easy 3D graphics for rendering geometry?

[Marco Nawijn]

On Nov 8, 6:53 am, gsal <salger... at gmail.com> wrote:
> What would be the easiest way to go about offering 3D graphics for the
> purpose of rendering geometry?
>
> Suppose engineers (my co-workes) have to design some enclosure,
> nozzle, bracket, or whatever physical part/component, I would like to
> write a program where they can at least see the resulting geometry and
> navigate it, i.e., zoon-in/out, rotate, pan.  On the side, I could
> have data entry fields with the input parameters and when something is
> changed, the graphics can be updated "immediately" (after the
> necessary calculations have been done).
>
> I know I need to learn something, and I am willing, I just need help
> choosing what to learn.
>
> I don't have any experience on this matter, don't know OpenGL, Mesa,
> VTK, VRS, Maya...and all seem to have a steep learning curve. I don't
> know any of the "other" graphics packages more oriented for game/
> scenery/movie development (Panda, etc.), either.
>
> I do know my trig and build my FEA parts parametrically from points,
> to line, to surfaces, to volumes or from volume boolean algebra.
>
> I would like the choice to be some kind of module/API that works
> equally well on Linux as in Windows.
>
> So:
> What would be the easiest way?
> and would it be worth learning?
> or
> is it better to shoot for something not so easy but worth learning?
>
> thanks in advance for any pointers.
>
> gsal

Hello,

Take a look at www.opencascade.org. This is a powerfull C++ library
for building CAE
(Computer Aided Engineering) applications. It also has a rather steep
learning curve,
but the resulting geometry could be easily exported to FEA packages.

Another possibility is www.salome-platform.org which is build on top
of OpenCascade. It has
a nice Python interface which makes the learning curve probably a
little more acceptable. A
downside is that, I think there are no Windows binaries yet.

Regards,

Marco Nawijn