Which language to choose for CAD application development

Question

I am planning to develop a CAD application. I am bit confused in deciding which language to chose for the development. My main focus is on the application performance and quality. Right now I have 2 choices QT and VC++.

Which is better from the above 2? Is there any other language which I can use? Any CAD development idea/guide which would help?

Thanks

Answer 1

If you want to develop a CAD software, you first need a geometric kernel (unless you intend to do it yourself...). Most of them are written in C or C++.

The most known options are either:

1. OpenCascade (FOSS)
2. Parasolid (Proprietary)
3. A direct integration to an existing CAD system (PRO/E, CATIA, SolidWorks, NX, ...)

Once you have a geometric kernel, you can start developing a front-end to your application. QT would be a better option, since it is a well known cross platform framework.

Answer 2

You could use an open source development framework. pythonOCC provides such a development framework for python. From the website:

pythonOCC is a 3D CAD/CAE/PLM development framework for the Python programming language. It provides features such as advanced topological and geometrical operations, data exchange (STEP, IGES, STL import/export), 2D and 3D meshing, rigid body simulation, parametric modeling.

PythonOCC is based on the Open CASCADE, a software development framework developed in C++.