[nirv]

Could you share your thoughts on interesting and worthy development paths or vision for a universal FOSS CAD tool/framework? If you were leading a funded team, what goals would you set for the project and how would you achieve them?

[fsloth]

To start with it can’t be universal. Models that you can edit (unless they are really dumb like DWG) are almost always domain specific.

You can - and should be able - to export to a universal format though.

But having a universal format is different than having a universal design space.

The requirments of a mechanical engineer are quite different from that of a structural engineer/and/or detailer for houses. And again different from those of a doctor planning a surgery based on CT model. For example you need rebars only in one of these. You need delicate fillet control only in one of these. You absolutely need support for import and visualization of volumetric data in only one of these.

What I’m getting at that while all design softwares have some common min set of features which _can_ be universal, the number of features in each stereotypical domain are surprisingly disjoint even if only comparing AEC and mech eng. Hence ”universal” design software would be a union of a very, very large set of totally unrelated features. Which suggests it would be hard to develeop, hard to use and hard to maintain.

So it’s better to have a collection of applications that aspire for ”universal scope” as a collection rather than ”one app to rule them all” which you will never get done in any case.

If we presume a hypothetical FOSS mission to enable computer design for all major fields benefitting from digital design for physical outcomes, it should then focus on this ”common min” core, interoperability (strongly linked to the common min core but separate concern - ie import and export) as well as domain specific projects of producing the domain specific UI and tooling.

[nirv]

I see your point about the scope, which is why I led with "framework" as a fallback in my question.

With that in mind, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what a practical FOSS implementation of such a framework might look like. Or at least a FOSS alternative to Fusion 360. Would you use ready-made geometric kernels, improve on existing ones (OpenCASCADE?), or start from scratch? Would you adapt to existing standard formats (import/export), or go with a new one? Would you build on FreeCAD, use another suite as a basis (source code if FOSS, or inspired UX/workflow if not), or do you see no point in that and think it would be better to start fresh? I was rather expecting a discussion along these practical lines.

Thanks for your perspective.