nice STEP viewer

Unfortunately, it is ONLINE i.e. ABSOLUTELY USELESS for all practical purposes.

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• KSI@home KOI8 Net < > The impossible we do immediately. *
• Las Vegas NV, USA < > Miracles require 24-hour notice. *

I think that viewing a STEP file is useful. I can see what my mechanical guys are doing.

edrawings is a huge pain to install and soon breaks.

This is our version of the dreadful Hammond box. We're just now adding the bottom flange, to allow serious power dissipation. That will be an extrusion too.

Just go get FreeCAD. Not just enables you to view and measure objects in STEP format but it is also a full blown 3D CAD that allows you to make your own 3D models from scratch.

They blew it for Linux because it is mostly Python so it is not included in standard Fedora anymore, but works just fine under Windoze.

As a side note -- NEVER EVER use that stupid Python thing! Those script kids make even MINOR versions incompatible with the previous ones few versions back and MAJOR versions are ROYAL PITA. It constantly changes and almost every new version is incompatible with the software that worked with previous one. And unlike e.g. C, it is an INTERPRETED weirdo so there is no such thing as pre-compiled binaries that one can keep working when a new "even better, with concepts changed" version is released. It is NOT some minor syntax changes that can be easily addressed; their changes are MAJOR so you'll have to re-write the code for it to work with their consecutive "even better" version as many constructs totally disappear or get replaced with new ones that you have to re-write significant portions of your code for.

Had to be whitelisted in my firewall first. I've nothing against Hungary but I don't permit outbound by default.

My preference would be a solution such as the one pointed out by Sergey.

I like Python but yes it can be a pain for all the reasons given.

I have two guys doing my mechanical design, both SolidWorks jocks. I design electronics, so I just want to see what they are doing. If I have a machanical design idea, I send them a sketch.

I'll look at FreeCad.

Python, like most modern computer languages, is a battleground for religious wars.

Now we have Rust, which looks like an explosion in an alphabet soup factory. In a war zone.

Fedora has python, just not the nearly 15! year old obsolete version ... and freecad is not going to keep 2.x support either

Python Wars. The online STEP viewer just worked.

Now the challenge is to mount three of these in a 1U rackmount adapter tray, and snug them down good, without having to remove the tray from the rack. Maybe that's too ambitious.

A ball-end hex driver works at a 25 degree angle off vertical (some people say 30) so the two front mounting screws can be accessed from the front of the rack.

The offline FreeCAD also works. As-is on a Windoze machine, and also works under Linux, just not included in the Fedora repository anymore. One can still make it run in Fedora, just requires some extra effort now vs just installing it from a repo before they switched to "even better" Python 3 and FreeCAD guys were not quick enough to make a buildable Python 3 version for the new Fedora release. It might even be added back in the next release as it is a usable program in high demand.

EVERYTHING online just sucks big time. Even something written in, sorry for an expletive, Python is better if it runs locally.

Viewing STEP files in FreeCAD is easy enough. You just import them. My main use of FreeCAD was converting IGES to STEP. You just import IGES and export STEP. Though IGES parts have no color, so then you just point click on the surfaces to change the color. I never used the Python feature.

I don't think so. Not on Windows, at least. The Python interpreter is built in. It has portable version, you just unzip.

Does FreeCad need the Python runtime system?