We are looking for an enthusiastic developer that can code a software bridge between our drawing software (Stabicad 2D:
www.stabiplan.com) and our production software (Winklima from T Grebe/
http://www.t-grebe.de/software_winklimax_en).
Currently, our employees make technical drawings of ventilation systems in Stabicad 2D. Part of a ventilation system is the “ductwork”, and as we produce this ductwork ourselves we are looking for an automated solution that easily exports the drawn ductwork into our production software. (instead of drawing it once in Stabicad, and a second time in Winklima). In a nutshell, we would like to minimize the amount of manual interactions between drawing the system and producing the different components of that system. In an ideal world, we would install this software at our clients, so they too can easily generate production orders from their technical drawings (easy to order and less manual errors and thus less discussion).
Stabicad generates “.dwg” files, and these can be either 2D or 3D, in these .dwg files every item of the ductwork has all the necessary properties that are required as input by the production software (length, height, width, diameter, angle degrees, …). Our production software imports “.xml” files so the bridge should convert from .dwg to .xml in one way or the other. Seeing that ductwork is only part of the drawing (there is also fans, air handling units, …) an ideal solution would provide the user the capability of selecting all/part of the ductwork to generate the “.xml” production file. We have started this project with a developer but our cooperation has ended due to miscommunication, long delays etc.. His solution was to code a “plug-in” for Stabicad itself, which can be loaded using the “netload” function and which generates a program (“palette”) within Stabicad that allows you to select the different items which you want to export.
It might be a solution to build further on this work, but from discussion with another developer I heard that it’s best to do a greenfield build. In the process, a proof of concept might be necessary, not only to check the technical feasibility, but also to run through the entire cycle of drawing, exporting & producing a certain duct item (we would recommend working with one of “medium” difficulty?). We can provide examples of .dwg files, .xml files and license codes for the software.
Thank you in advance!