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Blender 5.0

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Re: Blender 5.0

#351

Post by fsloth »

ok123456 wrote: post #346
fsloth wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"first class open source kernel" Speaking with over a decade of experience as a developer in industrial CAD (but still just one random guys point of view only). The question _isn't_ about the availability of a 3D kernel. 3D kernel is not the "moat". You can cross that with money. You can purchase a ACIS or Parasolid and you are off to the races. Or even use OpenCascade if you know what you are doing. The more interes…

The problem is that the industry doesn't really know what it wants. The further you get from a "general purpose" tool toward a highly specialized yet "trainable" one, there's a very perceptible drop in quality. We're talking about god-awful software here, where if you click the wrong button, the whole thing crashes, or you finish clicking the 30 different things in 4 different "wizards" and it still doesn't work. And…

” The problem is that the industry doesn't really know what it wants. ”

I would argue they do. What we call ’CAD’ today - digital design of surfaces for manufacturing - originated in aerospace and automotive industries.

What they _want_ is to manufacture.

To manufacture they need designs as input.

The designs ultimately end up as a) drawings b) surface models for toolpath programming c) 3D models for project coordination, validation, etc

They don’t actually care how many buttons you need to press as long as the final design is fit for purpose.

I agree CAD software is stereotypically not fun to use.

Also - there is a non-trivial population of CAD users who actually take pride in their skill to use these more or less broken tools. It’s some sort of weird masochistic/macho badge of honor.

My guess is optimizing the cost of design is not that interesting to anyone as long as a,b and c from above are fullfilled.

The engineers labour who needs to use the CAD tools is an insignificant percentage of the total cost in any case.

To understand why you need to dive into to the cost structures and value creation mechanisms as well as the culture in hardware.

To start with, in many fields the overall culture in hadrware is ”we sell the same junk as everyone else”.

”Just having a solid, open-source framework to build upon”

What’s missing from OpenCascade?

” There would be no AWS without GNU/Linux.”

Sure there would. Open source more or less copypasted existing industrial/academic patterns. But open source probably makes it cheaper and better.

There would no AWS without internet. Both as the protocol but also as the billions invested to the fiberoptic cables crisscrossing the worlds oceans.

The world is built on hardware. Hardaware is not _stupid_. But it’s _different_ than software.

To revolutionize CAD you first need to have deep understanding of the _hardware_ value chains and industrial methods. I think what makes it hard is _not_ having a kernel but having this cross discipline knowledge inside single org.

Re: Blender 5.0

#352

Post by fsloth »

gehsty wrote: post #345
fsloth wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"first class open source kernel" Speaking with over a decade of experience as a developer in industrial CAD (but still just one random guys point of view only). The question _isn't_ about the availability of a 3D kernel. 3D kernel is not the "moat". You can cross that with money. You can purchase a ACIS or Parasolid and you are off to the races. Or even use OpenCascade if you know what you are doing. The more interes…

I guess what I mean is that if the likes of huge defence contractors / automotive industry etc put weight into developing a open kernel and tooling at a volume similar to that of paying for licenses to Autodesk, then they could build their own hyper focussed CAD solution, and the rest of us could be "off to the races" without the upfront cost ACIS or Parasolid.

(I’m going to reorder quotes from above)

” rest of us could be "off to the races" without the upfront cost ACIS or Parasolid.”

Just start coding your CAD tool dude if you want to! You can totally start with OpenCascade.

All these kernels do is they 1) define tensor product surfaces (usually NURBs) with trimming curves 2) join these surface patches to watertight solids 3) export STEP (non-AM) or STL (AM)

The question is which hardware manufacturing path is the one you know so well you know what the important things are?

And the dirty secret here is that the 3D is _not_ the hardest part (it’s hard sure). You soon end up with schema management and database management as well as domain model challenges that are quite complicated. The main problem here will be that you can’t just start coding without knowing where you end up. You need to know _every step_ or you will end up in a quagmire that is no better than existing tools (slow, buggy). It’s totally doable but the total complexity will be non-trivial and the decisions you make year 1 will come haunt you and bite you in the ass year 5. Be prepared!

And for those coming outside to this - I’m not being glib! A 3D design tool totally can be a one man show to start with (see NomadSculpt, Plasticity or MagicaVoxel for example).

” I guess what I mean is that if the likes of huge defence contractors / automotive industry etc…”

I’m not sure what you are getting at.

These companies created what we call CAD starting from the 1950’s or so (research Parson’s NC work at MIT, Bezier’s work later at Renault if you want a wikipedia tour of the early years).

The current industry isn’t shaped like this because Dassault, Siemens and Autodesk decided to go all incumbent. They were more or less pushed to do so by market forces and industrial history (and if it was not them some other company would be the incumbents).

Re: Blender 5.0

#353

Post by kelsolaar »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #8
Uehreka wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But after that, all the other things on the page are AWESOME! I’m super stoked about the proper HDR support and all the new node improvements.

Yeah. the HDR support is very nice. ACES got their system right the 2nd time around thankfully.

ACES 1.x was quite old and released at a time where HDR displays were pretty much non-existent. ACES 2.x is not perfect but trying to provide display rendering transforms that hit contradictory requirements is really hard, e.g., need to have a really nice rolloff and desaturation towards white whilst being able to reach corners of the gamut.

Re: Blender 5.0

#354

Post by throwaway290 »

Uehreka wrote: post #143
throwaway290 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no monitor uses ACES so it always needs to be converted to P3 to even see what you're doing right? or you are saying if there is some intermediate transform that makes color go beyond P3 it will get clipped? then I understand...

Yeah, like, let’s say that in your compositing workflow you increase exposure then decrease brightness. If your working color space is too small, your highlights will clip when you increase exposure, then all land flat at the same level when you decrease brightness. If your working space is bigger than the gamut people can see, but your last step is to tone map into Display P3, you’ll appreciate the non-clipped highl…

From what I read Rec2020 is about as wide as ACEScg, so using ACEScg will as likely clip as Rec2020, no?

Re: Blender 5.0

#355

Post by nirv »

fsloth wrote: post #303
gehsty wrote: post #26

I’d really like to see something like blender come for the 3D CAD industry, at the moment it feels like the only people who would lose out are AutoDesk. The amount of money that flows in and out of 3D cad (as subscription and then value created) having a first class open source kernel and tooling, would be giving big industrial players freedom to modify and tailor to their needs as well as smaller / hobbyists get sta…

"first class open source kernel" Speaking with over a decade of experience as a developer in industrial CAD (but still just one random guys point of view only). The question _isn't_ about the availability of a 3D kernel. 3D kernel is not the "moat". You can cross that with money. You can purchase a ACIS or Parasolid and you are off to the races. Or even use OpenCascade if you know what you are doing. The more interes…

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?

Re: Blender 5.0

#356

Post by ok123456 »

fsloth wrote: post #351
ok123456 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the industry doesn't really know what it wants. The further you get from a "general purpose" tool toward a highly specialized yet "trainable" one, there's a very perceptible drop in quality. We're talking about god-awful software here, where if you click the wrong button, the whole thing crashes, or you finish clicking the 30 different things in 4 different "wizards" and it still doesn't work. And…

” The problem is that the industry doesn't really know what it wants. ” I would argue they do. What we call ’CAD’ today - digital design of surfaces for manufacturing - originated in aerospace and automotive industries. What they _want_ is to manufacture. To manufacture they need designs as input. The designs ultimately end up as a) drawings b) surface models for toolpath programming c) 3D models for project coordina…

The existence of CAD/CAM/engineering software cartels like Dassault and Hexagon suggests that more rent-seeking than innovation is occurring, actively stifling innovation.

It would be like if Oracle, Broadcom, and Computing Associates owned 99.9999% of the software market.

Give good open-source tools to the people who are actually making the hardware, and there will be supply-chain-wide positive externalities.

Re: Blender 5.0

#357

Post by the_lucifer »

bigyikes wrote: post #109

What does Blender do differently that makes it such a successful open source product? It’s powerful and pleasant to use. Even the release marketing page is beautiful and well-made. I like open source as much as the next guy, but outside of developer tools there is little that comes close to Blender in terms of utility and UX. Is it funding? Specific individuals? Are there PMs and designers? Whatever it is, it’s worki…

One biggest thing that I cite when I bring up Blender as probably the best open source software is that it has stellar UI/UX.

NO other (yes I’d die on the hill) open source software has good UX and it’s horrible for adoption by the larger public.

Re: Blender 5.0

#358

Post by fsloth »

nirv wrote: post #355
fsloth wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"first class open source kernel" Speaking with over a decade of experience as a developer in industrial CAD (but still just one random guys point of view only). The question _isn't_ about the availability of a 3D kernel. 3D kernel is not the "moat". You can cross that with money. You can purchase a ACIS or Parasolid and you are off to the races. Or even use OpenCascade if you know what you are doing. The more interes…

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?

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.

Re: Blender 5.0

#359

Post by fsloth »

ok123456 wrote: post #356
fsloth wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

” The problem is that the industry doesn't really know what it wants. ” I would argue they do. What we call ’CAD’ today - digital design of surfaces for manufacturing - originated in aerospace and automotive industries. What they _want_ is to manufacture. To manufacture they need designs as input. The designs ultimately end up as a) drawings b) surface models for toolpath programming c) 3D models for project coordina…

The existence of CAD/CAM/engineering software cartels like Dassault and Hexagon suggests that more rent-seeking than innovation is occurring, actively stifling innovation. It would be like if Oracle, Broadcom, and Computing Associates owned 99.9999% of the software market. Give good open-source tools to the people who are actually making the hardware, and there will be supply-chain-wide positive externalities.

”actively stifling innovation.”

Weeelll … it’s a 70 year old field if you start counting from NC. It’s also possible most of the low hanging innovation fruits were picked long ago. Also innovation required decades of _really hard work_ in applied maths (see nurbs or catmull-clarke surfaces*).

I’m not saying there isn’t room for innovation!

But we also have the examples of several other types of applications clearly reaching maximum utility. Photo editing around Photoshop 6.0 or so, word processing like decades ago, spreadsheet like decades ago.

Sometimes things _do_ seem to have their optimum form.

I’m not saying FOSS CAD would not have a value! But it’s not obvious to me it would be a vehicle for innovation.

I guess better, more easier to edit and robust surface presentation would be valuable if someone came up with them. But that’s a field that requires generally decades of applied research to first find a better model and then a decade of productizing the innovation.

So since you need to keep industrial mathematicians on board without certain outcomes it’s a bit same as medical research - need continuous investment, careers, etc. For this reason it’s not obvious to me there would be an open source framework that would work here predictably.

Again, I’m not saying you are wrong. Maybe there are simple low hanging fruit just waiting to be picked. But I’m not sure you are exactly right either.

* Catmull-Clarke surfaces are a great example. Ed Catmull founded Pixar decades after inventing the surface, but it took a decade of industrial research inside Pixar before they became a usefull tool (Geri’s Game). Toy story was still NURBs, somewhat ironically.

Re: Blender 5.0

#360

Post by daedrdev »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #70
daedrdev wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blender is a decent option for low effort 3d modeling for 3d printing in my experience

Depends if your goal is artistic or functional. Blender is good if you are trying to make character models, etc. It's not great when you are trying to make a part that has to fit something in the real world and after printing you discover one step half way through needs to be 1mm shorter.

You can make a part in a way where you are sure of the tolerance, and you can do the opposite in blender. They have measuring tools and you can be pretty precise.
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