[HN Gopher] History of CAD
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History of CAD
Author : nill0
Score : 126 points
Date : 2025-02-25 03:36 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.shapr3d.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.shapr3d.com)
| tape_measure wrote:
| I'll have to work through the 650 pages.
|
| I use CATIA v5 every day, first released in 1998. It's sharp and
| crusty and huge, but does everything (with the right license).
| smartis2812 wrote:
| Me too. But I really looking forward to it.
| nraynaud wrote:
| Funny, I'm French, and I know people who developed a bit of it.
| buildsjets wrote:
| If you really push CATIA hard, you can get it to crash in
| French, or at least crash with a poorly translated error
| message.
|
| "The Document cannot be unloaded because he is dirty" was one
| of my favorites.
| satiric wrote:
| I like the "Click OK to terminate" error. As though it
| wants to make sure it has my permission to crash.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Crusty it is. The fillet tool STILL totally sucks after 27
| years, and I STILL frequently find myself needing to define
| surface geometry, fillet the surface, and use that to split the
| solid rather than just directly filleting the solid, in order
| to get the same type of fillet intersections that you get when
| you machine the part.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Lemon felt strongly that timesharing systems were the wave of
| the future and that SDRC should focus on providing software on
| these systems rather than license its software for a one-time
| fee. Initially, the company sold ANSYS and NASTRAN on a
| timesharing basis using computers operated by U. S. Steel.
|
| SDRC did SaaS in the 1970s, before SaaS was cool.
|
| > In September 1994 the company announced that it would be
| restating its revenues and earning for 1992 through the first
| half of 1994 to include a $30 million charge relating to sales
| discrepancies in its Asian operations [...] The company
| immediately terminated Tony Tolani, a vice president and general
| manager of SDRC's Far Eastern Operations.
|
| I was going to say they cooked the books before it was cool, too,
| but that's a much older trick. They claimed they sold all this
| software while in reality they just dumped it in some warehouse
| at the Cincinnati airport. Then proceeded to sell their shares
| before shit hit fan. SEC link with more details:
| https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/litreleases/lr15325.txt
|
| That is to say the downright corrupt and shady sales and
| management team almost killed the company. It recovered
| eventually and ended up being bought by EDS
|
| > While the software's geometric modeling capabilities were
| improved it was the package's user interface that really
| impressed me. Icon menus typically were only two levels deep
| compared to five and six levels in other systems [...] I wrote in
| the April 1995 issue of EAReport: "I-DEAS has the best
| interactive user interface available today for mechanical design
| and analysis.
|
| I agree. Its interface would look odd and clunky by today's
| metrics and might even been considered unusual at that time, but
| it was really nice to use after some practice. They seemingly put
| some effort into its design.
| branko_d wrote:
| I remember working with SDRC I-DEAS API in the early 2000s - it
| was well documented and "clean looking" compared to something
| like PTC's Pro/TOOLKIT. Interestingly, it was also CORBA-based,
| and it worked quite well over LAN.
| rdtsc wrote:
| I worked on I-DEAS briefly, on the FEM part, but not the UI,
| so never got the chance to talk to the UI team. It was a wild
| time. Windows NT was taking the CAD/CAE world by storm,
| especially with much cheaper graphics cards available. We
| still supported SGI, AIX, HP, Sun, but the writing was on the
| wall already, and there was a break-neck pace to port
| everything to Windows.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > They claimed they sold all this software while in reality
| they just dumped it in some warehouse at the Cincinnati
| airport. Then proceeded to sell their shares before shit hit
| fan.
|
| Now crypto bros can just nakedly pump and dump. We live in
| interesting times.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| I recently learned that there is a free community edition of
| Solid Edge: https://resources.sw.siemens.com/en-US/download-
| solid-edge-c...
|
| According to the History of CAD Solid Edge originally came from
| Intergraph. Many packages/kernels seem to have changed hands over
| the course of decades.
| rurban wrote:
| Good counter on John Walker's "The Autodesk File"
| https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/
| delhanty wrote:
| Seeing as David Weisberg's "History of CAD" is trending today I
| submitted "History of Unigraphics" by 3 of the original
| Unigraphics 7 dwarfs.
|
| Edit: Unigraphics X SDRC became the system we know today as
| Siemens NX
|
| It came out at the end of 2024 - these guys must all be around 80
| by now.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43169194
| vincnetas wrote:
| tangential : I still can't get over the idea that shapr3d license
| is subscription only. You cannot buy the software. This means
| that your whole work/workflows ceases to exist if you not
| continuing to pay. No fallback option.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Unfortunately, the printing industry rolled over for Adobe and
| set a precedent.
|
| An alternative to Shapr3D might be: https://www.plasticity.xyz/
| which has an interesting license and licensing model (I bought
| a Studio license at launch, but haven't used it since).
|
| Fortunately, FreeCAD is markedly improved, and for folks who
| want something light-weight and intuitive, I would recommend
| trying: Dune 3D as discussed here previously:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37979758
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40228068
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40228257
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41975958
| bsimpson wrote:
| I just started using CAD last week, but as I understand:
|
| - Plasticity is so expensive because it uses one of the major
| kernels (SIEMENS Parasolid). Most of the licensing fee
| actually goes to them. You can find the Show HN post with a
| much cheaper price before he changed kernels.
|
| - There was a firm called Ondsel that was trying to improve
| the UX of FreeCAD by selling a fork. It recently folded. One
| of their employees is trying the same as AstoCAD. The idea is
| that you fund the development of FreeCAD, and you get the
| improved binaries before the work lands upstream.
| WillAdams wrote:
| That is my understanding as well.
|
| Curious what CAD program (programs?) you are using and what
| sort of work you are doing and how you are approaching it.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I'm using Fusion 360. It seems to have the best community
| support.
|
| I work at a big company that likes to claim ownership of
| anything I create while I'm on contract. Fusion is free
| until you earn more than $1k from your making, but I
| don't expect to earn anything from it while I'm employed.
|
| This video is a little slow, but it does give you an
| overview of the UI:
|
| https://youtu.be/8VFOVxdi4Qs
|
| And this one teaches you enough to start making things:
|
| https://youtu.be/xJihYVwkCqw
|
| I used 3ds Max in high school and have been a lifelong
| user of the Adobe suite, so I just needed enough to know
| where the buttons are and what the core workflow looks
| like.
|
| I've got a few projects going.
|
| I just moved into a new apartment, and I'd like to sculpt
| some hangers - one to mount a speaker on the TV, and a
| pair to hang my old Rock Band guitars on the wall. I
| think I'm gonna do the engineering in Fusion and then
| sculpt the aesthetics in Tilt Brush.
|
| Speaking of Rock Band, I've discovered a graveyard of
| neglected plastic instruments in the game room at work,
| as well as an open source Arduino/Raspberry Pi firmware
| that will allow them to work with any game, donglefree.
| I'm designing a new USB faceplate and brackets to make
| the new boards fit the existing standoffs, so I can
| refurbish them.
|
| https://santroller.tangentmc.net
|
| Finally, my new kitchen island has a frustratingly short
| drawer. I cut the back off it and bought longer rails.
| I'm designing spacers and jigs to help me keep it square
| and level as I reinstall the extended version.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Have you considered how Autodesk arrived at that level of
| community support and how the license for Fusion 360 has
| changed over the years? (and is subject to change in the
| future).
|
| My comment from a Reddit discussion on Fusion 360 license
| changes:
|
| >Translation:
|
| >We have extracted all the beta-testing which we wanted
| for free out of naive users
|
| >and are now taking our game over to the other field
| where we can charge admission.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/hobbycnc/comments/itw4d7/autodes
| k_i...
| bsimpson wrote:
| Honestly, I'm more interested in getting these projects
| made than in "what if"ing the future. I have a hard time
| imagining my needs exceeding what I expect to remain in
| the hobbyist sphere, and I have the ability to transfer
| my skillset to another tool when the time comes.
|
| I'd rather spend a month trying things out with the free
| thing with lots of reference material than go off on my
| own path spending hundreds on some indie software that I
| might only use a few times.
| dekhn wrote:
| None of those events have had any impact on me as a hobby
| user of Fusion 360. Sure, it's subject to change. The
| software is a business for them. I know a lot of people
| got worked up over this. I do not see any alternative
| that is as cost-effective and functional.
| s1mon wrote:
| In the world of CAD, Plasticity is only expensive when
| compared with free tools. The "Indie" version is $149USD,
| and yes a lot of that cost apparently goes to paying
| Siemens for a Parasolid license. Shapr3D is also Parasolid
| based, along with NX, Solidworks, Onshape and a bunch of
| others.
| nullc wrote:
| When I saw this thread I wanted to toss a comment in: If you
| used FreeCAD prior to 1.0 and abandoned it because editing
| past operations was an exercise in frustration-- give it a
| try. It now seems to be as robust in editing as solidworks or
| onshape is.. and is now quite usable.
| analog31 wrote:
| There's an interesting cultural divide here. Probably a
| majority of mechanical and electrical designers still think
| it's risky and weird to use software that doesn't come from a
| vendor. Even though they experience occasional outages when
| something goes wrong with the license billing and payment. The
| electricals are a bit further along, I think because they're
| closer to the programming world.
| jwagenet wrote:
| I think it's more that management in this space is very
| traditional and from a business perspective there's not much
| downside to a subscription. The individual engineers don't
| really have a choice in cad package anyway and frankly, the
| alternatives still suck in mechanical space.
|
| Not to mention, file formats between packages are sort of
| interoperable, but often the design history cannot be
| transferred. It's not like software land where if a vendor
| goes down (and the code is reasonably structured), an
| organization can mostly replace it with substitutes.
| monkmartinez wrote:
| They have a neat program, but its really hard to defend their
| pricing model. I gave it a shot and its just way too expensive
| given the functionality. Yes, they are constantly improving,
| but the price for me is just too much considering alternatives.
|
| Read through this discourse topic:
| https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/why-there-is-no-plan-for-hob...
|
| I don't understand why they do what they do when it comes to
| pricing.
| nraynaud wrote:
| I don't seem to find a dead tree version of the book. I don't
| know how much work it entails, but maybe the profits of such a
| sale could go to the good cause they were advertising?
|
| Maybe it's the right opportunity to ask if you know a good online
| service for printing/assembling of big documents.
| delhanty wrote:
| >Becoming a book publisher wasn't on my bingo card when I
| started Shapr3D. Yet here we go! For now, it's only available
| to select customers--but if there's enough interest, we'll make
| it accessible to the public. The book spans 860 pages and
| weighs approximately 3 kg--just as heavy as CAD is.
|
| Become a select customer of Shapr3D and their CEO Istvan
| Csanady might send you one.
|
| https://twitter.com/istvan_csanady/status/188829861216722566...
| amelius wrote:
| Is there an overview of which software is using what kernel?
| nill0 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_modeling_kernel
|
| "Kernel developers section"
| amelius wrote:
| Thanks!
| phkahler wrote:
| In the open source world there are 2 (maybe 3) geometry kernels
| that handle NURBS and can produce STEP files. Open Cascade,
| which is GPL now but had a commercial origin. It's quite good
| and is used in FreeCAD, Salome, KiCAD (EDA), Horizon EDA, Dune
| 3d, and probably several more. And then Solvespace which is the
| only user of it's own bespoke kernel which we are still trying
| to make more robust. This one is also limited to a certain
| subset of NURBS constructs but is still quite useful.
|
| Open Cascade may be the most difficult piece of FLOSS IP to
| recreate outside the Linux Kernel. In fact I'd say it'd be
| harder to replace given the number of people with interest and
| the background to work on these two different type of software.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Thank you so much for all the work you and your colleagues do
| to bring solvespace to the world.
|
| I believe it has the potential to be one of -- and probably
| already is in -- a class of super impactful, all time classic
| pieces of software alongside the likes of Firefox, Gimp,
| Inkscape, et al.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Agreed, though I would put it in a more rarified category
| of "Opensource software which has innovated in terms of
| interface in a unique and meaningful fashion." --- other
| tools I put in this space are:
|
| - LyX
|
| - pyspread
|
| - ipe
| rjsw wrote:
| Solvespace only seems to have simple STEP export, Open
| Cascade can import STEP as well.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Solvespace only seems to have simple STEP export...
|
| And it will probably stay that way. STEP is a huge
| specification and solvespace only supports a small subset
| of the features of it. In particular it doesn't do complex
| NURBS curves or surfaces, it only supports rational Bezier
| curves and surfaces up to degree 3. It does support trimmed
| surfaces which result from boolean operations and which
| most other OSS NURBS libraries do not handle.
|
| Some day I'd like to get it to import what it can -
| particularly its own output - but that's a very low
| priority since it would be quite limited.
|
| BTW gcad3d has fairly extensive STEP I/O with its own GPL3
| C code (so we could start with that). I'm still not sure
| what that tool is mostly for - it seems to be more for CAM
| simulation? but I'm not sure.
| rjsw wrote:
| I would use the STEP I/O library from Open Cascade (or
| BRL-CAD), they are closer to how we expect someone to
| read and write STEP models, neither are really tied to
| the parent CAD system. The one in BRL-CAD does have
| problems compiling a feature of the latest STEP
| standards.
|
| One thing missing from the subject of the thread was any
| history of the exchange formats.
| amelius wrote:
| Will geometry kernels ever be fully robust, or is there still
| a holy grail to be discovered here?
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Will geometry kernels ever be fully robust, or is there
| still a holy grail to be discovered here?
|
| WRT robustness maybe not. Even the commercial ones tend to
| fail in certain situations. I'm not sure if there's a
| widely desired holy grail people are looking for and I
| don't even know what that would look like. I might
| recognize it if it appeared, but maybe not.
|
| BTW for FEA I think a major new thing is available in
| Altair products the last couple years.
| WillAdams wrote:
| I've been reading through a PDF on my Kindle Scribe which I
| downloaded from the original site --- it's a great overview, and
| most importantly, includes citations and references to the
| various papers where folks shared their research/progress.
|
| These days of course, one would just get _The Essentials of CAGD_
| and similar texts, or read: https://pomax.github.io/bezierinfo/
| or watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvPPXbo87ds
|
| Highly recommended for anyone who wants an understanding of how
| modern CAD software came about.
|
| For my part, I have found it invaluable in working on my current
| project as described at:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43159236
| anoother wrote:
| A PDF of the submission? Would be grateful if you had a link; I
| can't seem to find one on the website.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Is it up on archive.org?
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230325080337/https://www.cadhi.
| ..
|
| if not, drop me an e-mail at my username here @aol.com and
| I'll dig it out.
| seemaze wrote:
| found a PDF copy here: http://images.designworldonline.com.
| s3.amazonaws.com/CADhist...
| rjsw wrote:
| Spotted one typo, the reference to Hanchette in the section on
| Matra Datavision should be Hachette.
|
| That section could also mention that the Matra software is now
| opensource.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Why are you telling us?
| scarygliders wrote:
| Hmmm, no mention of Teknicad? sadface
|
| I seem to be the only person (along with 3 others who were my
| cow-orkers) who ever used or heard of Teknicad , running on
| Tektronix Unix workstations and terminals :)
| buildsjets wrote:
| One thing about this history is that it kind of light on the
| development of CAM, Computer Aided Manufacturing, which was co-
| developed along with CAD, and in some cases was actually a
| predecessor to CAD.
|
| I recommend "A Possible First Use of CAM/CAD" by Norman Sanders
| as a short history of CAM in the 1950s/1960s.
|
| https://inria.hal.science/hal-01526813
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| How does Shapr compare to FreeCAD?
| satiric wrote:
| Here's a neat paper about Boeing's use of CAD and CAM in the 50s
| and 60s. I particularly like the story about their first
| computer-made part drawings. There were no printers, and plotters
| were too inaccurate; but they had CNC mills and they realized "if
| you can cut in three dimensions, you can certainly scratch in
| two." So Boeing's first computer-made part drawings were engraved
| on sheets of aluminum.
|
| https://inria.hal.science/hal-01526813v1/document
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