Comment by s1mon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by s1mon | Hacker News Reader

It's exciting to see a new entry into this space, especially one that is trying to create a new kernel. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to be successful. The top kernels in the industry have been in development for decades by armies of CAGD PhDs and programmers, with funding from automotive and aerospace companies. Getting to table-stakes with the feature set will take a long time.

I also question what user problems this is trying to solve. CAD users don't necessarily need things to be open source. They may have limited budgets, but open source is not a user facing feature in this space the way it might be for some developers. Plasticity has shown that it is possible to license Parasolid and make money at a very low price point.

I've been using parametric CAD tools for 30+ years. I find that Onshape is a pretty amazing solution to many of the issues that exist with Creo or Solidworks. I never loose data. Having the equivalent of Google Docs for collaborative CAD with unlimited undo based on a ground up database instead of a file system is life changing. That said, its modeling capabilities are still playing catch up with other tools.

A big downside to Onshape (and Creo and Solidworks) is that it started as 2D sketches to extrude/revovle/loft etc into 3D objects. 3D tools are an add on and afterthought to the fundamentals. Plasticity (and Rhino and Alias) are all much more 3D first.

Onshape's FeatureScript is really cool and powerful, but it is not as good for CAD users to build their own tools as say Grasshopper in Rhino.

I would focus on what user problems are being solved. How will CADmium be a better CAD tool for a certain market than any of the others paid or free? Even though this is very early days in the development process, it's not too early to try to understand user needs. Open source is not in and of itself a goal.

People have said the same about browser engines, that it's impossible to start and new one and catch up due to the unfathomable number of man hours invested. But it's happing, Ladybird browser is making incredible progress. With modern tools, the learnings from older engines and the lack of entering debt it's possible for a small team to build things on par or better than 30yo software.

I have no doubt that a small dedicated team could build a new parametric kernel and CAD package, particularly one that's open source.

There will be significant differences in demands made by the end users of a web browser and a viable CAD system for serious work though.

It is an extremely tough market that many have been shaken out of.

Reliability is a must, particularly on the data representation and exchange front. And those assurances carry ENORMOUS costs. Big money at immediate risk in downstream, physical product if that goes south at any time - spread across multiple manufacturers and other product lifecycle parties.

Lots of workstation compatibility certification work done on CAD kernels.

PLM alone, embedded in many engineering organizations, is a very sticky element for retaining a certain CAD program and certain kernels internally - and it is my understanding that PLM is where the major money is made (not so much on the per seat CAD licensing costs).

New grads are coming out from college today after using CAD company-supplied software in much of their classwork for 4 years.

Many CNC controllers use Parasolid internally for certain visualization and programming operations - machines that will be working on the floor for decades from today.

The fact is that the per seat licensing cost and lock-in tradeoff is simply not a serious issue for many - and such costs have become arguably marginal for even small design houses and manufacturers.

New CAD users would appreciate a good open source alternative. Moreover, the world is a diverse place, not everyone has the same kind of money or quantity.

I think CAD users would benefit greatly from good open source alternatives.

> CAD users don't necessarily need things to be open source... Open source is not in and of itself a goal.

While there are certainly challenges to open source development, there are no downsides to using open source software. It works just as well for people who don't know what it is or means and just as well for people who are indifferent to it. There are great reasons to avoid proprietary software, though, and they're even stronger when you're talking about SaaS (as we increasingly are nowadays, and specifically are in this case). CAD software is an area where many users have /already/ been burned by proprietary systems changing their offerings /after/ they've invested hundreds of hours learning and using their platform.

I'm aware I'm in the minority, but open source is absolutely a goal in and of itself for me. I've been using open source software exclusively for a very long time.

I mean… Onshape, Creo, and Solidworks use the same kernel so it’s not too surprising the UI/UX is similar (I’m speculating for OnShape but given the company history, they probably are). Rhino and the like are geared towards 3D graphics on top of CAD so it’s not surprising either that they’re a Freeform surface modeler first. That being said, I don’t know about the open source part not being a goal. It’s like KiCAD vs Altium. If they manage to have 90% of what Onshape has to offer but open source, I can imagine people using it. I get the angle of cost though, since Solidworks license is about the order of $3-5K, most companies would rather pay it and use something proven.

FWIW, Onshape was created for less than $10M to make a MVP in less than 3 years. I don’t think you need decades of PhDs to make a new CAD program nowadays.

Onshape and Solidworks (and Shapr3D, and Nx amongst others) use the Parasolid kernel. Without Parasolid, Onshape wouldn't have happened so quickly. It also helped that it was founded by many of the core team behind Solidworks. Parasolid started being developed in 1988. [0]

Creo uses the Granite kernel, which was developed by PTC, starting in 1985. [1]

Onshape and Solidworks (and many others) also license the same 2D solver, D-Cubed, now from Siemens as well (originally from a company founded in 1989). [0]

None of this is to say that it is impossible to start fresh, just that there are insane numbers of person-years of development work embodied in these libraries. To get anywhere near the level of completeness and power will take a lot.

[0] https://www.engineering.com/story/parasolid-d-cubed-and-siem...

[1] https://www.shapr3d.com/history-of-cad/parametric-technology...

I don't think it is healthy for most of the commercial CAD industry to rely on one proprietory kernel and exchange file format like Parasolid.

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