rattleCAD is a parametric 2D

computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

(CAD)

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

specific for

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered transport, human-powered or motorized bicycle, motor-assisted, bicycle pedal, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two bicycle wheel, wheels attached to a ...

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

, in particular for design

bicycle frame A bicycle frame is the main component of a bicycle, onto which wheels and other components are fitted. The modern and most common frame design for an upright bicycle is based on the safety bicycle, and consists of two triangles: a main triangle ...

, developed by the Austrian

cyclist Cycling, also known as bicycling or biking, is the activity of riding a bicycle or other types of pedal-driven human-powered vehicles such as balance bikes, unicycles, tricycles, and quadricycles. Cycling is practised around the world fo ...

and

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

''Manfred Rosenberger'' since 2008. The application is written in the

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

Tcl TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to: Business * TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company ** TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology * Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league * Trade Centre Limited ...

using the Tk-based

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

(GUI). In 2019, after 10 years being

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

, ''rattleCAD'' switched to a

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...

development model.

History

In 2008, ''Manfred Rosenberger'' began developing ''rattleCAD'' as

for bicycle

do it yourself "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, wikt:modification, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals ...

(DIY) makers and bike shops, hosting

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

and

binary code A binary code represents plain text, text, instruction set, computer processor instructions, or any other data using a two-symbol system. The two-symbol system used is often "0" and "1" from the binary number, binary number system. The binary cod ...

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...

since January 2010, as an alternative to only few existing proprietary apps in this field at the time, such as ''BikeCAD'', one of the oldest CAD software specific for bicycle design, developed by a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

bicycle rental A bike rental or bike hire business rents out bicycles for short periods of time, usually for a few hours. Most rentals are provided by bike shops as a sideline to their main businesses of sales and service, but some shops specialize in rentals ...

businessperson A businessperson, also referred to as a businessman or businesswoman, is an individual who has founded, owns, or holds shares in (including as an angel investor) a private-sector company. A businessperson undertakes activities (commercial ...

and a programmer ''Brent Curry'' since 2002, and ''Linkage'', a CAD and CAE software for bicycle design and

bicycle suspension A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. ...

simulation A simulation is an imitative representation of a process or system that could exist in the real world. In this broad sense, simulation can often be used interchangeably with model. Sometimes a clear distinction between the two terms is made, in ...

, developed by a Hungarian

software developer Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

''Gergely Kovacs''. From 31 March to 1 April 2012, the app was exhibited at the ''European Handmade Bicycle Exhibition'' (EHBE) in

Schwäbisch Gmünd Schwäbisch Gmünd (, until 1934: Gmünd; Swabian: ''Gmẽẽd'' or ''Gmend'') is a city in the eastern part of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. With a population of around 60,000, the city is the second largest in the Ostalb district ...

. On 11 April 2012, app has been presented at the ''Bespoked 2014'' (the UK handmade bicycle show) in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. On 8 July 2017, Rosenberger presented ''rattleCAD'' at the ''EuroTcl 2017'' (15th European Tcl/Tk User Meeting) in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. On 7 July 2018, at the ''EuroTcl 2018'' (16th European Tcl/Tk User Meeting) in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Rosenberger presented the ''cad4tcl'' – an open-source CAD graphics

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

for Tcl/Tk, extracted from the main ''rattleCAD'' source. On 10 December 2018, first ''rattleCAD 4.0.0'' preview release has been rolled out. In January 2019, ''rattleCAD 3.6.30'' has been released. It was the last open-source release.

Source closing

In 2019, Rosenberger announced ceasing open-source development and switching to proprietary development model for the next ''rattleCAD 4.x'' releases on the new website. Since then app provided via Gumroad as a limited

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

version under donationware payment model (later freeware version replaced with a more restricted

demoware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

version) and as commercial editions for private and professional use under

subscription The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century. It ...

payment model. As of June 2023, project page on SourceForge still actively used as a discussion board by users and app developers. Despite the fact that all the old source and binary builds licensed as an open-source has been deleted from SourceForge by developer in 2019, few code snapshots of original code and a fork of ''rattleCAD 3.x,'' hosted on GitHub, and binary of the last open-source ''rattleCAD 3.6.30'' and older releases, still circulated on the internet as of October 2023, are now collected on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

Features

''rattleCAD'' provides all the tools needed for design bicycle from preliminary design of basic geometry, adjusted to cyclist body size, to producing full assembly and frame manufacturing documentation: * Step-by-step GUI for bicycle design. *

Parametric design Parametric design is a design method in which features, such as building elements and engineering components, are shaped based on algorithmic processes rather than direct manipulation. In this approach, parameters and rules establish the relatio ...

for basic geometry, then used to calculate detailed bicycle geometry, including shop drawings for frame tubes cutting. *

Vector graphics Vector graphics are a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector displ ...

representation of CAD data. * Catalog of bicycle parts CAD blocks. * Automatic generation of manufacturing 2D plans and documentation. * Export

FreeCAD FreeCAD is a general-purpose Solid_modeling#Parametric_modeling, parametric 3D computer-aided design (CAD) modeler and a building information modeling (BIM) software application with finite element method (FEM) support. It is intended for mecha ...

Macro, via ''rattleCAD 3D'' (extra plugin), to generate

3D model In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of a surface of an object (inanimate or living) in three dimensions via specialized software by manipulating edges, vertices, and ...

of bicycle frame and whole assembly model inside FreeCAD app.

File formats

''rattleCAD'' supports the next file formats: *

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

– for storing ''rattleCAD'' ''3.x'' bike design projects and templates. * *.rc4 –

JSON JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced or ) is an open standard file format and electronic data interchange, data interchange format that uses Human-readable medium and data, human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consi ...

-based file format for storing ''rattleCAD'' ''4.x'' bike design projects and templates. * SVG – for import, export drawings and docs, and as a bicycle parts libraries files (CAD blocks). *

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

– for export project report as a webpage (with a project file and a set of drawings in SVG) ready to publish on own website. *

DXF AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a computer-aided design (CAD) data file format developed by Autodesk to enable CAD data exchange and interoperability between AutoCAD on different computing platforms. His ...

– for export drawings and docs. *

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

– for export drawings and docs. * STEP – for export 3D assembly model. * Python (*.py, *.FCMacro) – for export FreeCAD Macro to generate 3D models inside FreeCAD.

Release history

* Change logs on official site and SourceForge page

cad4tcl

''cad4tcl'' – is an open-source graphics library for Tcl/Tk to build CAD software, developed as a part of rattleCAD. It supports importing SVG and exporting SVG, PDF and DXF files.

svgDOM

''svgDOM'' – is an open-source SVG graphics processing and optimization library for Tcl/Tk, developed as a part of rattleCAD.

References

External links

* *, official page
rattleCAD
on

GrabCAD GrabCAD, Inc. is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup that created a free cloud-based collaboration environment that helps engineering teams manage, view and share CAD files. History GrabCAD was founded in Estonia in 2009 by current CEO, ...

, official page *, users group * Manfred Rosenberger on

*
Manfred Rosenberger
on

Forum
rattleCAD
on AlternativeTo *, backup of binary and source releases *, fork of ''rattleCAD 3.5.14'' source
Bike Geometry Calculator
free online

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

Geometry Geeks
online bike geometry comparison tool *, open-source program to analyse MTB suspension kinematics
Custom Framebuilding Forum
bicycle frame-builders community forum {{Portal bar, Transport, Engineering Bicycle industry Tcl programming language family Computer-aided design software for Linux Computer-aided design software for Windows Software using the GNU General Public License Free software programmed in Tcl Software that uses Tk (software)