<story><title>CAD Sketcher, free and open-source project bringing CAD like tools to Blender3d</title><url>https://www.cadsketcher.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samwillis</author><text>I always love to see these projects attempting to create an Open-source parametric CAD tool, but I think they will never get the the level of functionality and stability required. The fundamental issue for all of them is the lack of a robust open source &amp;quot;parametric CAD kernel&amp;quot;, these the the central core that understands BREP and implements the geometric operations.&lt;p&gt;The most widely used kernel is OpenCascade, the kernel used by FreeCad. However it is outdated, unstable and limited in significant ways with no realistic future prospects. It is unfortunately the limiting factor of FreeCads functionality and prevents any serious use of it.&lt;p&gt;The most widely used commercial kernel is Parasolid, used in many packages including SolidWorks, OnSpace, and NX.&lt;p&gt;What I would love to see is Siemens adopting a model similar to some of the game engines (Unreal and Unity) where it&amp;#x27;s free up until a revenue limit. Opening up Parasolid for &amp;quot;free&amp;quot; open source and small commercial operations would be both brilliant for society but also for Siemens, it would only result in a growth in the use of Parasolid and increased revenue.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>s1mon</author><text>Nick Kallen has been working on an BREP based CAD tool with the sort of ease of modeling that things like Blender has. Originally it was based on C3D, but he switched halfway through to Parasolid.[0] It’s amazing the amount of features he has built considering it’s a one person project. It’s worth going through his progress report videos.[1]&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;WvwiH1DOK1M&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;WvwiH1DOK1M&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtube.com&amp;#x2F;@nickkallen1&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtube.com&amp;#x2F;@nickkallen1&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>CAD Sketcher, free and open-source project bringing CAD like tools to Blender3d</title><url>https://www.cadsketcher.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samwillis</author><text>I always love to see these projects attempting to create an Open-source parametric CAD tool, but I think they will never get the the level of functionality and stability required. The fundamental issue for all of them is the lack of a robust open source &amp;quot;parametric CAD kernel&amp;quot;, these the the central core that understands BREP and implements the geometric operations.&lt;p&gt;The most widely used kernel is OpenCascade, the kernel used by FreeCad. However it is outdated, unstable and limited in significant ways with no realistic future prospects. It is unfortunately the limiting factor of FreeCads functionality and prevents any serious use of it.&lt;p&gt;The most widely used commercial kernel is Parasolid, used in many packages including SolidWorks, OnSpace, and NX.&lt;p&gt;What I would love to see is Siemens adopting a model similar to some of the game engines (Unreal and Unity) where it&amp;#x27;s free up until a revenue limit. Opening up Parasolid for &amp;quot;free&amp;quot; open source and small commercial operations would be both brilliant for society but also for Siemens, it would only result in a growth in the use of Parasolid and increased revenue.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Svenstaro</author><text>I think some interesting developments are made in that sector in the form of &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;hannobraun&amp;#x2F;Fornjot&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;hannobraun&amp;#x2F;Fornjot&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;ricosjp&amp;#x2F;truck&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;ricosjp&amp;#x2F;truck&lt;/a&gt;. Let&amp;#x27;s see whether one of those will actually get anywhere near a usable level. Fornjot in particular is shaping up really well.</text></comment>