calling all Linux hackers...

[Doug Winterburn]

All the requirements should be documented, with the mandatories identified for first release and the remainder scaled as to importance (gets political at this point).

-Doug

[Doug Winterburn]

With a little more though on my part, preferred/non-preferred orientation should be an attribute of the material - width/length order can be interchanged for efficiency as long as the rule of no stop cuts is preserved.

-Doug

[Silvan]

I use... Um. sirc? I don't IRC much either. I set something up when I was switching to Debian, so I could ask those guys some stupid questions. There's no Debian newsgroup for some reason.

Lots of IRC clients out there though, and no, that's not a bad idea at all.

We should set up some kind of mailing list. I've looked into the registration process at SF, and we need to get a lot further toward having tangible goals before I'm comfortable writing up a proposal. We should come up with a way to communicate between now and then without clogging up the Wreck, but IRC isn't the best choice for me.

I guess for now, if you have any thoughts, e-mail me.

[nospam]

also useful would be the ability to turn off orientation per piece. sometimesorientation of a ply panel matters, sometimes not Bridger

[Silvan]

About the various types and sizes... I'm not quite getting what a cutlist program should do in this area. I create a list of parts, and it tells me what size board/how many to buy, or I specify the board and it helps me figure out what parts I can cut out of it?

With random length/width hardwoods, this is something that needs real thought. As a user, I'd probably want to be able to build a database of stock I have available for the project at hand, and let it pick what goes where.

Since we're dealing with two dimensions (at least, that's as far as I'm thinking right now) it doesn't much matter whether it's a board or a sheet.

I'm thinking of Board objects that have a length, width, and grain orientation property, including "no grain" as an option. This kind of object could represent anything from walnut to plywood to MDF.

Definitely. I'm thinking for convenience predefine standard and thin, then have a user-specified option.

I'm thinking we want to stay away from floating point and potential rounding errors and big headaches. I'm thinking 1/64" resolution, and track all dimensions internally as 64ths. We should allow for Metric measurements for the whole rest of the planet too, which is something that needs some thought. Use Imperial internally, convert to Metric as needed. Use Metric internally, convert to Imperial as needed, or work with whichever system internally. Since this is Linuxdom, we should probably default to Metric, or take the preference from the locale.

Does thickness matter? Things get much more complicated in three dimensions.

Should have a quick and dirty typing mode, and a pointy clicky typing impaired mode.

URL? I haven't heard of it. OK, I'll STFW. Anyway, I agree on principle. In the long term, it should probably export to useful formats too. Browsing the abstracts after a google search, it seems some of the Windows programs can be used to export files that can be fed to CNC equipment. Lots of research needed, and I would put that as a late cycle feature.

Or vice versa. For the sort of things I've been making lately, it's better to crosscut into discrete regions and then rip to width.

If I have anything to do with it, it will be GPL, and if it has a GUI, it will be QT/KDE. I have enough trouble with one framework, and since I'm not a professional developer, I see no reason to learn anything else. I like KDE, I use KDE, I hack on KDE apps, and avoid everything else as much as practicable.

Lot's to go yet, I'm sure. I've never started anything collaborative from scratch, so this is all new to me. If somebody with a hefty dollop of clue wants to take the reins and get things off the ground, I'll be happy to step back and be a mere footnote contributor.

[Silvan]

Wow, after reading a few lines of that, I think I should go find some place to hide real quick like. :)

Very interesting. That bears looking at for sure!

[EvoDawg]

LignumCAD worked well for me but I had to do some font thing that I don't remember exactly what, I think it had something to do with X86config. I know when I had trouble with it in the beginning the developers were very easy to contact and get info from. It might be different today since it was at least a year ago that I messed with it. But the idea of having something built into LignumCAD would be a great idea. At least a suitable plug-in or an import, export feature.

Rich

[Silvan]

I've been looking at it just now, and I see what you mean. I'm not motivated at the moment, but I'll grab the code in the morning and set about dicking around with it. Looks like I *should* have most of the deps already in line, and I'll just have to find them and diddle the files.

I'll definitely be too stupid to use it though. All I had to see was the "3D" and that was enough to scare me away forever. :)

[Bill]

You're no sheep or cow yet you actaully believe MS and/or Bill Gates is trying to take over the world? Do you know that for a fact or is that what all your other Linux buddies are telling you? Do you realize that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has paid over $6 billion in grants to aid world health and education? If that's an evil empire, then we need more evil empires. And as far as your bogus statement on Microsoft losing market share to Linux, here's an article you might be interested in

I already stated my feelings for Linux and Windows. I know both so my marketability stays high. That's why I have a six figure salary. In my opinion, you're a fool if you pigeonhole yourself to one area of expertise.

-Bill

[EvoDawg]

Yes they give billions, billions in computers with Microcrap software on it. Hmmm, wonder what their real motivation is? Bill Gates does nothing unless it benefits him and MicroCrap. I'm not bootstrapped to one OS I just choose to use the better OS, one with less chance of virus and Trojan attacks and a million times faster.

Six figures, wow. I own a construction company that did 15 million last year. What do you think my salary was? 3.75/hr.

Oh, they're worried that's why every chance they get you will hear attacks spewing from their mouths when it comes to Linux. They have just about lost most of Europe and the rest of world is seeing through their bullshit, finally!

Rich

[EvoDawg]

Hope you realize what you have gotten yourself into!

Rich

[Neal]

I suggest you get your facts right concerning what the Gates Foundation has done. The foundation is the largest charity foundation in the world with over

20 billion dollars. The vast majoriy of this money goes out for medical aid to poor countries. This is not benefiting Microsoft financially. I try to be very open minded and I have tried Linux and did not like it. I thought it was a backward step. Windows works very well for my needs and I feel it is very reasonably priced. You Linux fanatics need to calm down. It's just software.

Yes, you are right. Linux is gaining fast on Windows. I think Linux may be up to 1% of the market. It may catch up to Apples 3% any day now.

Neal

[Bill]

What about the ability to add a small amount to each dimension for a rough cut which can be cut to final dimensions at a later time.

The ability to generate a shopping list. Basically say that my sawmill sells lumber which is 4-6" wide and 100" long. How many boards will I need.

-Bill

[Silvan]

Yeah, really. Well, maybe not. It looks like you guys have everything under control now, and I can go hide and start bitching about when is it finished. :)

[Silvan]

As I understand it (and I could well be mistaken), one reason Bill Gates gives away so much money is because he doesn't want his children to grow up spoiled, lazy brats. He wants them to have to earn a living, and make their own fortunes. I can respect that.

I stay out of politics. Everything else aside, the #1 reason why I love Linux is because I can customize EVERYTHING!! I've never had control like this before. Once I got a taste for it, it took me about three days to make it my default, and about a month before I reclaimed the wasted space and reformatted my Windows partition to use a filesystem that let me set permissions properly.

I haven't looked back, and I don't give a rat's ass why anybody runs anything.

[Tim Daneliuk]

I am, unfortunately, not available to help code this, but some ideas that may help:

- Separate the logic of the program from it's GUI presentation. That allows you to start out without a GUI and have it just spit out textual descriptions of the cuts initially until you have that part of it under control. Then you can write the GUI piece last to turn those descriptions into a visible cut picture. IOW, make it _right_ then make it _pretty_.

- A _Very_ good and easy to maintain environment for this kind of thing is the Python language with Tkinter GUI framework. The nice thing about it that your program will run on Win32, Linux, FreeBSD, and probably even Macs. I wrote a reasonably complex program like this some time ago and was VERY happy with environment:

Recognize that taking a list of desired cuts and fitting them to a given sheet size (or sizes) is not some absolute mathematical process. It requires a heuristic approach because these kinds of problems are what are called "NP-Complete" - you cannot possibly try every combination of fit to get an optimized cutting arrangement. You need some general rules to help the program limit the number of tries until you get one that is "good enough". You may want to do some reaseach on this to see if anyone has done this heurstic work in a way that could apply to your problem.

- This is not an inconsequential program, so be prepared to spent some time with the design, especially of the layout engine.

- Don't forget to factor in the kerf width :)

[Tim Daneliuk]

The hardest part of this problem is the heuristics for the layout engine. The rest is a matter of technique and paying attention to detail. If I were doing this (and thankfully, I am not :) I would spend my early research and time on the heuristics problem...

[Silvan]

Definitely. My thinking has been going in that direction too. We need to solve the underlying problem first, before even thinking about what features the thing should have.

think I have a beginner's guide around here somewhere. Python or Ruby, I forget which. It looks kinda nasty to learn.

Definitely. I've spent some time thinking about the problem, and inconsequential is quite an understatement. :)

In fact, I have to admit that after thinking on this for a couple of days, I picked out a whole list of things that I need to do to clean up messes I've left behind in Rosegarden before I can think about getting involved with something this enormous.

Nothing like a seemingly insurmountable challenge to make those old, irritating bugs look like an appealing use of time, is there? :)

[Mark & Juanita]

Good, somebody asked the question I was going to ask (don't know why Steve Dunbar's post didn't show up). i.e., it looks like a number of folks have volunteered to work the coding issue, has anybody looked into the algorithm design issue? Looking at the above referenced site, it appears that the guillotineable layouts are those that meet the constraint for not having any stopped cuts (in one dimension).

[Bill]

Man you are one paranoid individual.

Well, if you were smart, yes. Low salary equals low taxes.

I would be willing to bet that they're worried less about Linux than you're worried about Microsoft and what Bill Gates is up to. Just be happy that you've "outsmarted" them and get on with life before you have a coronary.

-Bill