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Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

solvespace.com

101–110 of 135 posts

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeCAD doesn't have the limitations of SolveSpace, and the UX is actually decent now. I moved to that.

I’m looking for a recommendation to get beyond TinkerCAD (for 3d printing). I learned it in 2019 and came back in 2025 when I got my own printer. It is comfortable and fine for my purposes but lacks basic things like chamfer and fillets. Anytime I try to jump into Fusion or FreeCAD I immediately hit a wall (like trying pirated Maya when I was a kid).

Try FreeCAD one more time, if you haven't tried 1.0+, and it might stick. I've finally, in the past 6 months moved all my work to FreeCAD and KiCad after trying both many times over the past decades.

I highly recommend watching one of MangoJelly's beginner videos for FreeCAD, even if you have CAD experience. It made it very clear how to adapt my Fusion360 skills.

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#102
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does it run etirely locally in the browser after downloading a total of 2993991 bytes (less than 3 megabytes) of code? ;-)

Local storage too. We don't want your data. That 3MB also includes gnu unifont, the builtin vector font, and the 3js viewer for when you export models to html (viewer gets bundled in the file)

GNU Unifont is 973KiB, and we also have the vector font unicode.lff.gz at 1.03MB.

So the web version of SolveSpace is literally one megabyte of WebAssembly.

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#103
post #46

Here's my take on CAD in the browser! https://vcad.io I implemented a full kernel in rust and compile it to wasm https://github.com/ecto/vcad

What strategy are you using for tolerances, compounding errors, and the nuances of floating point math?

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#105
I recently got into 3D printing and, of course, after seeing countless ads on YouTube for OnShape, that was my first choice.

Anyone having used both can share their thoughts about how solvespace and OnShape compare?

On my end I’ve been loving OnShape and find it pretty intuitive. I also tried fusion360 but closed it after 5 minutes, it felt too sluggish.

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#107
Looking at stream events, the event type is so long and often repeated for each event with little extra payload it could be potentially easy win for Anthropic to optimize system bandwidth by using shorthands.

> {"type":"content_block_delta","delta":{"text":" search"}}

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#108
post #3

SolveSpace is a wonderfully different take on parametric CAD, but development has really slowed, and it seems fundamentally incapable of some pretty rudimentary features (like chamfers[0]). Dune 3D[1] seems like a pretty effective spiritual successor. 0: https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/issues/149 1: https://dune3d.org/

Chamfers and Fillets are my next major undertaking. Don't expect them any time soon, but they've moved to the top of my list. They are extremely difficult to do in the general case - so we will not cover all cases. Several years ago I tried an experiment: https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/issues/453#issuecom... That could only do the top or bottom of a straight extrusion. This time will be a more general than…

  >corners where 3 fillets meet
I would imagine there are a few different possible options (preferably a settable parameter):

* Intersection. Conceptually the simplest, the chamfers would just be joined by the solid addition of all three fillet surfaces, creating three new sharp corner edges that meet at a single vertex.

* Rolling sphere. Imagine an idealized spherical "thumb" smoothing out caulk. The middle would be joined by a new spherical concave surface, tangent to all three fillets. Also generalizable to convex fillet intersections, smoothing out sharp corners.

* NURBS, with adjustable parameters or even control points, eg when you want a little more "meat" in a corners for strength of a part.

* Flat corners, for chamfers (what do do when N>3 corners meet?)

* What else?

Ideally you might be able set the corner type separately for inside vs outside corners, or on a per-vertex or (in the most granular case) per-incoming-edge basis? Is that crazy?

How do saddle corners[0] behave? Does it just "work out" and (by some miracle) uniquely resolve for all permutations and corner types?

It certainly gets complex quickly!

[0] center, where the cubes all intersect https://entitleblogdotorg3.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/esche...

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeCAD doesn't have the limitations of SolveSpace, and the UX is actually decent now. I moved to that.

I’m looking for a recommendation to get beyond TinkerCAD (for 3d printing). I learned it in 2019 and came back in 2025 when I got my own printer. It is comfortable and fine for my purposes but lacks basic things like chamfer and fillets. Anytime I try to jump into Fusion or FreeCAD I immediately hit a wall (like trying pirated Maya when I was a kid).

You may try onshape that is supposed to have a better accessibility than fusion 360, but unfortunately it doesn't seem that a CAD software with a complexity intermediate between tinkerCAD and FreeCAD an dthe pro CAD software exists

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#110
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> difficulty of generalizing chamfers/fillets. There's a reason that basically all FOSS CAD packages have struggled with it. Could you decompile CAD, run it through an LLM, and call it a day?

Aren't there licesing issues with porting a proprietary implementation into an open-source one that could open up the project to legal issues with the proprietary vendor?

The Plasticity guy seems to be threading that needle.
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