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Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

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Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#111

Post by WillAdams »

faangguyindia wrote: post #39
ezst wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That people on this forum convinced themselves that it's a reasonable take to vibe code a useful geometric kernel is profoundly depressing.

Just wait for sometime, there will be one. There are many geniuses on HN for tacking up challenge

Vibe coding only seems to work, insofar as it does when the training data includes multiple exemplars of solutions to a given problem.

As noted elsethread, there's only one geometric kernel which is decently far along and opensource and it's over 1 million LOC --- I doubt it's being included in any training data, and I doubt that an LLM could regurgitate such a large project which would then compile w/o errors and then work as expected --- the number of tokens required to get such a project to an initial state is a marked hurdle as well.

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#112

Post by WillAdams »

ruevs wrote: post #79
ur-whale wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FreeCAD is amazing these days. FreeCAD has become much better, no denying it. "Amazing" is however not the word I would use though, the UI is still very convoluted and very hard to learn. The worst part in FreeCAD, and which remains true to this day is the load of minutia you need to know to handle/avoid weird corner cases that you inevitable run into when you start building complex models and where FreeCAD stubbor…

The last Autodesk software I've used was AutoCAD 2000 (released in 1999). And I've not followed them since. Perhaps they have indeed become "one of the worst corp. in the world of software", but in the early years they were very interesting. The founder of Autodesk, John Walker (he died in 2024) wrote/edited and interesting book on the early years: "The Autodesk File" https://fourmilab.ch/autofile/

Yeah, and then ran away to Switzerland rather than work to preserve the democracy which made his fortune possible.

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#113

Post by throwup238 »

schiffern wrote: post #108
phkahler wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

That’s not even the complex part. Most of what you describe is a user interface issue, not a geometric kernel issue.

The hard part of 3 corners fillets is the tolerances. Each of those fillet operations has its own compounding float errors and when they meet, the intersection is so messy that they often do not intersect at all. This breaks almost every downstream algorithm because they depend on point classification to determine whether an arbitrary point is inside the manifold, outside, or sitting on an edge or vertex.

And that description of the problem is just scratching the surface. Three corner filets create a singularity in UV space at the common vertex so even when you find a solution to the tolerance problem you still have to deal with the math breaking down and a combinatorial explosion of special cases, almost each of which has to be experimentally derived.

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#114

Post by jijijijij »

bruckie wrote: post #96
jonpurdy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

OnShape is pretty approachable, and has lots of good tutorial videos. They offer free accounts for non-commercial use with the caveat that all of your documents must be public. If you haven't tried FreeCAD recently, it's gotten a lot better in the past couple of years. It seems to have hit escape velocity, so to speak, and is improving rapidly in a way it hadn't for a long time.

> They offer free accounts for non-commercial use with the caveat that all of your documents must be public.

Major caveat! Also online access required.

And if you decide to upgrade, the next tier is 1,410€ per year.

For that amount of cash, FreeCAD can abuse and torture me quite a bit. Lol.

Also at the rate FreeCAD is developing and improving now, if more people would drop just 1k€/ donations into FreeCAD/OCCT, chances are your pains will ease rather sooner than later.

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#116

Post by schiffern »

throwup238 wrote: post #113
schiffern wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 j…

That’s not even the complex part. Most of what you describe is a user interface issue, not a geometric kernel issue. The hard part of 3 corners fillets is the tolerances. Each of those fillet operations has its own compounding float errors and when they meet, the intersection is so messy that they often do not intersect at all. This breaks almost every downstream algorithm because they depend on point classification…

This is why geometric kernels are the gateway to madness. ;) Thanks for the clarification.

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#117

Post by ruevs »

throwup238 wrote: post #113
schiffern wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 j…

That’s not even the complex part. Most of what you describe is a user interface issue, not a geometric kernel issue. The hard part of 3 corners fillets is the tolerances. Each of those fillet operations has its own compounding float errors and when they meet, the intersection is so messy that they often do not intersect at all. This breaks almost every downstream algorithm because they depend on point classification…

Join SolveSpace development? ;-)

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#118

Post by ruevs »

WillAdams wrote: post #112
ruevs wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last Autodesk software I've used was AutoCAD 2000 (released in 1999). And I've not followed them since. Perhaps they have indeed become "one of the worst corp. in the world of software", but in the early years they were very interesting. The founder of Autodesk, John Walker (he died in 2024) wrote/edited and interesting book on the early years: "The Autodesk File" https://fourmilab.ch/autofile/

Yeah, and then ran away to Switzerland rather than work to preserve the democracy which made his fortune possible.

Is this critique or praise of his character? ;-)

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#119

Post by voakbasda »

WillAdams wrote: post #110
yonatan8070 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That might seem to be the case, right up until he gets taken to court over it.

Never presume that a thing is legal (or will not later be punished) on the basis that someone is already doing it.

Re: Open source CAD in the browser (Solvespace)

#120

Post by hollerith »

WillAdams wrote: post #112
ruevs wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last Autodesk software I've used was AutoCAD 2000 (released in 1999). And I've not followed them since. Perhaps they have indeed become "one of the worst corp. in the world of software", but in the early years they were very interesting. The founder of Autodesk, John Walker (he died in 2024) wrote/edited and interesting book on the early years: "The Autodesk File" https://fourmilab.ch/autofile/

Yeah, and then ran away to Switzerland rather than work to preserve the democracy which made his fortune possible.

That is more of an indictment of the US than it is of Mr Walker. Maybe I should run away to Switzerland, too.
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