[etskinner]

The opening paragraph is very telling; the author doesn't seem to understand typical pro-level parametric CAD programs available on the market:

> I keep designing physical parts for our robots. Motor mounts, sensor brackets, wheel hubs. Every time, the workflow is the same: open a GUI CAD program, click around for an hour, export an STL, realize the bolt pattern is 2mm off, repeat.

This doesn't make sense. When you realize the bolt pattern is 2mm off, you just edit that dimension and let the CAD program recalculate. You don't need to click around for an hour again. That's the beauty of contstraint-based parametric modeling as opposed to, say, modeling in Blender.

The author's program is akin to writing vim to replace Publisher. They're solving entirely different problems. Not to mention, this code-as-model paradigm already exists: OpenSCAD

[bangaladore]

> That's the beauty of constraint-based parametric modeling as opposed to, say, modeling in Blender.

I was thinking the same thing. This looks more like an API that makes 3d modeling look closer to CAD, but without realizing that CAD is about constraints, parametrizing, and far more.

[throwup238]

> but without realizing that CAD is about constraints, parametrizing, and far more

Constraints and parametrizing are the trivial parts of CAD, something you can now implement in a weekend with Claude Code, the MINPACK/SolveSpace test suite, and OpenCascade as an oracle. The hard part is a geometric kernel that can express boundary representations for complex shapes (sketches, chamfers, fillets, etc) and boolean operations while somewhat handling the topographical naming problem without driving the user insane (which existing kernels are still all shit at).

[tomcur]

We've started a 2D geometric constraint solver at https://github.com/endoli/fiksi doing the constraint part of this in Rust. We're using it internally and so far it works well, though it's still experimental. More constraints and especially better behavior around failure are needed. The latter will likely entail at least doing more with degree of freedom counting, though there's some of that already.

A C++-library to be aware of is SolveSpace's slvs: https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/tree/e74c2eae54fdd9....

[imtringued]

This is something I don't get about the code-based CAD tools. They don't let you specify declarative geometric constraints.

Constraints are useful beyond just designing parts. If you have a parallel mechanism there are only two ways to solve the kinematics/dynamics for it: Constraint solving for rigid contacts or iterative solving by approximating the model with non-rigid contacts via internal springs.

[ecto]

You're correct, I'm completely uneducated! Pull requests welcome :)

[IshKebab]

The pull request is to delete the project and open SOLIDWORKS or FreeCAD.

But don't actually delete it. It looks like a nice alternative to OpenSCAD. But like OpenSCAD it's really a niche thing for designs that are highly parametric like fasteners, gears, 3D printed boxes, etc.

Like OpenSCAD using it for normal "irregular" CAD is going to be extremely frustrating. Like editing an SVG in notepad instead of Inkscape.

I still feel like there's a unexplored space where you combine the benefits of both somehow though. Like a code-based CAD but it also has a GUI editor that stays in sync and avoids the need to type in coordinates by hand. That would be extremely difficult though.

[jetter]

If you like OpenSCAD, you should check https://modelrift.com which is an OpenSCAD browser-based IDE which uses LLM to generate .scad and instantly shows the .stl 3d model result via 3d model viewer. Since AI models are still not good at openscad, the useful feature of modelrift is the "screenshot-powered" iteration where human annotates visual problems and sends it back to AI assistant to fix, all using hotkey shortcuts.

[gwbas1c]

Read a bit before critisizing:

> One thing I care about that most CAD tools don't: vcad is designed to be used by AI coding agents.

[amelius]

AI coding agents are notoriously bad at anything that involves spatial awareness.

[ilogik]

For that there’s openscad