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Comment by pvab3 | Hacker News Reader

How much is Balkanization going to matter with these programs? Is everyone going to split into using dozens of different design tools?

I don't want to create files using some application that's just vibe-coded and won't be supported for very long. I'm sure that's not the case for some of these, but the prospect of finding the best software and verifying that it's here to stay seems like more work than just sticking with Fusion and OnShape.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I see multiple posts about some new drafting or design tool every day, and the cost of integrating them into any existing workflow seems high.

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There is already a common exchange format between all the 3D parametric CAD had converged to: STEP files, and Parasolid x_t files to a lesser extent due to it being the dominant kernel on the market.

So, integration isn't really the difficult part if everybody generates files in the same format.

Step files are just "dumb" solids and are not useful if you actually want to edit a model's features or relationships. Almost all CAD software keeps the actual editable model info in proprietary file types. Some CAD programs can generate a part file from a step file with varying degrees of success, the professional CAD packages (CREO, CATIA) being the best at it, but even then they often fail to produce a complete part for anything that is remotely complex. Step files are mostly used to export a final product to production (CNC, 3D printing, etc), or sometimes used incorporate common hardware into a larger assembly, like a simple bracket or something.

>Step files are just "dumb" solids and are not useful if you actually want to edit a model's features or relationships.

Until now.

I've spent the last 7 months working on my Aetheris geometry kernel because I wanted to have a CAD software that uses STEP, specifically, AP242, as its native format instead of just an exchange format. Very happy to say that I've succeeded, as you can add dimensions and GD&T to STEP 203/214 files and convert them to 242 directly.

Directly editing an existing STEP file is still limited to moving through holes around though, but there is no reason why more advanced editing couldn't be done.

Except I believe only CadQuery among those listed outputs useful STEP files.

Build123D is also a OpenCascade wrapper I think, so it should output STEP files as well.

It does, along with many other formats.

Notably, PythonSCAD is a soft fork, so stays in synch w/ OpenSCAD

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