How much vibe coding is involved in this?
It's by the team that did Horizon EDA, which is very much a "craftsmanship-first" effort. and they've been working on this for some time now. My guess is hardly any.
Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
51–60 of 117 posts
Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
#52Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
FreeCAD: https://freecad.org
I would not suggest anyone use FreeCAD. The UX is the worst I've seen for any software. Finding any functionality is next to impossible.
Can't agree, I'm a complete newbie in CAD, and after I opened FreeCAD I didn't know what to do at all. Watched one youtube video covering all the basics and I can design whatever I want with confidence. Besides being free – it's very intuitive and great piece of software in my opinion
Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
#54How much vibe coding is involved in this?
It's by the team that did Horizon EDA, which is very much a "craftsmanship-first" effort. and they've been working on this for some time now. My guess is hardly any.
Is it a team really? Most commits seem to come from one user "carrotindustries". I am really interested in an Open Source CAD application with good UX, this one looks great. But I don't want to spend too much time on an application maintained mostly by a single developer. The risk of it being abandoned is too high.
Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
FreeCAD: https://freecad.org
I would not suggest anyone use FreeCAD. The UX is the worst I've seen for any software. Finding any functionality is next to impossible.
Yeah I just end up using Fusion 360. But depending on a freebie for hobbyists that could be withdrawn any time it's a bit worrying. I wish there were good visual tools.
I don't like browser based and blender is too focused on animation (I'm more into 3D printing) so I haven't found a good FOSS alternative. FreeCAD isn't it anyway.
Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
#56Dune3d comes off like a reskin of SolveSpace. SolveSpace is pretty awesome, so that's not a knock, per se. I'll leave it to somebody with more experience to fill in what value Dune3D adds beyond SolveSpace.
I found the UI far more approachable in Dune 3D than any other 3D CAD program I've tried and as the readme notes, Dune 3D imports STEP files and does fillets/chamfers which SolveSpace does not (in the current version) There was a recent video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1VNpC0nwF4 If someone knows of a general introduction to 3D CAD which focuses on vendor-neutral descriptions of terminology and concepts,…
I've had far more success following along video tutorials than written ones. Most written tutorials (as you've pointed out) miss far too much detail. Watching someone do it and copying along teaches all the menu navigation stuff implicitly.
I've successfully learned quite a few EDA and 3D CAD tools that way. It's also effectively the way it's taught in a classroom - the teacher shows you and you copy.
Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
#57Some other open source 3D CAD tools: Code-based - CadQuery - https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery/ - build123d - https://github.com/gumyr/build123d - OpenSCAD - https://openscad.cloud/openscad/ GUI (browser-based) - Cadmium (abandoned, cool idea) - https://mattferraro.dev/posts/cadmium
libfive - https://libfive.com guile scheme, bindings in Rust and Python personally exited to check it out for real constructive-solid modeling, as opposed to emulating that workflow over OpenCascade's (fickle but otherwise lovely) BREP modeling (ie. edges & faces) via build123d (which has been great but is increasingly vibe-coded :/) discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12319406 a real construct…
Libfive has been superseded long ago by fidget (same author, Rust not C++).
Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
#58Its not often you see 'fillets and chamfers' are tip-line features in the readme for CAD packages. But good on you for building something.
This is honestly the first thing I look for with anything new claiming "CAD".
Roughly every other week there is a new "The (programmable) CAD that fixes everything!" post on the front page, just for me to open them up excitedly and noticing that they use a mesh kernel and will thus never be able to provide fillets and chamfers painlessly (for the user). All while they are absolutely essential for a lot of designs, especially in 3D-printing, a well-placed fillet/chamfer can make the difference between an object that breaks upon looking at it funny and one that can bear significant load.
Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
FreeCAD: https://freecad.org
I would not suggest anyone use FreeCAD. The UX is the worst I've seen for any software. Finding any functionality is next to impossible.
It's been improving rapidly. The upcoming (imminently) 1.1 has a large amount of modern UI affordances, such as on-canvas gizmos that at times actually are easier to use than e.g. the Fusion ones. I'm a heavy Fusion user, but for me FreeCAD is nearly there now and the improvement over 1.0.x is massive.
There's a lot more to do, but my feeling is the project is taking UI/UX design much more seriously than it has in the past, with the ramp-up of an internal design-focused team etc. I get that feeling from reading the weekly progress updates and MR discussions.
I'm very optimistic for the future of FreeCAD personally. I think it's a great time to contribute if you are interested in making UI/UX better as well because there's much higher interest in that kind of work now. I think it's close to having its own Blender/KiCAD moment.
Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application
#60Dune3d comes off like a reskin of SolveSpace. SolveSpace is pretty awesome, so that's not a knock, per se. I'll leave it to somebody with more experience to fill in what value Dune3D adds beyond SolveSpace.
Usability?
SolveSpace is a PITA in that regard. You also need to re-learn most terms that are common in other CAD software. It's a typical OSS thing.
Why care about professional users that have years of learning invested into an ecosystem of professional CAD software (including terminology)? Because these people will get you the most valuable feedback if you can get them to even play with your OSS CAD thingy.
AI has now balanced the scores here. Someone with decent CAD experience can now instruct a model to build something useful.
Based on lots of good libs out there that solve the basics. I.e. concentrate on UI/UX to build something better.
It's like Lego, hands-free. You have all the blocks and you have someone who knows how/helps you combine them.
If you have good taste, you can get nice results without understanding how the Legos where made or how to even combine them.