[HN Gopher] JermCAD: Browser-Based CAD Software
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JermCAD: Browser-Based CAD Software
Author : azhenley
Score : 55 points
Date : 2025-11-07 04:38 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| pkphilip wrote:
| This is really cool! All the best with this
| jdndbxbcb wrote:
| Is it though? Looks and feels like AI slop on openscad
| utopiah wrote:
| Indeed, and what worries me is that it might pull resources
| away from OpenSCAD or similar projects for something that, I
| imagine, won't be maintained.
| jalk wrote:
| What resources will it pull away if it's unmaintained?
| utopiah wrote:
| Contributors to alternatives.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| AI Slop, yes. OpenSCAD, no. You can read the package file and
| see the dependencies. It is based on three.js and a couple of
| boolean-related plugins, and then the LLM wrote a text-based
| STL export function.
| utopiah wrote:
| How does it compare to OpenSCAD, bitbybit, JSCAD, FreeCad,
| CadQuery, Curv, implicitCad, libfive, RepCAD, etc?
|
| I mean it's nice that it exists, I guess, but there are already
| quite a few project (my list here isn't exhaustive) that seem (on
| the surface at least) equivalent beside the input format (YAML,
| but maybe some support that, I don't know).
|
| So I don't want to imply that this has been vibe coded just to
| avoid searching what already exist, why they exist, why they
| don't support one specific feature... but still now that we are
| in this situation, namely 1 more item on the least, how can we
| compare it with the rest in order to know which one to use for
| our own needs?
| WillAdams wrote:
| To add to that, I would like to note:
|
| https://pythonscad.org/
|
| (which to be fair, is getting integrated into OpenSCAD
| Dev/Nightly)
|
| which was a sea change for me in terms of both my usage, and my
| learning as a programmer, making my own project far more
| capable --- working on one last re-write (making use of skin()
| for straight-line moves), and it should be ready for general
| usage.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| > Important Note: This project is almost entirely vibe-coded and
| likely contains loads of bugs. Use at your own risk!
|
| There was a time people took pride in writing high quality
| software.
| adastra22 wrote:
| On the other hand, this is an example of a new category of
| tools: things made by individuals scratching an itch, that
| wouldn't have been made otherwise because the barrier to entry
| was too high.
|
| There will always be a need for high quality human-reviewed
| software, but I think we should celebrate this too.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Scratching an itch with a rusty nail risks tetanus.
| isolatedsystem wrote:
| You'd be surprised. I have to run RHEL at work, with Gnome.
| No Albert, no Wofi, no Rofi. Fuck all in the repositories.
| For months I missed typing Alt + Space, typing filename,
| hitting enter and having it open.
|
| One evening with Claude. Done. Obviously it's not perfect,
| but man what an amazing thing to be able to do. I'm not
| even a software developer. LLMs are the new Excel.
| foobarian wrote:
| This category of projects reminds me of how the aliens in
| Niven's "Mote in God's Eye" used to work, making instant
| bespoke things as they went along.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > There was a time people took pride in writing high quality
| software.
|
| And other people have always churned out low-quality software
| that solves a problem they have in a specific way. This is just
| sort of accelerating
| Mtinie wrote:
| From my viewpoint you are conflating software quality with
| ambition. All software develops iteratively. Tools now
| celebrated for quality and consistency (commercial and OSS
| alike) shipped from states where they were neither. Jerm-CAD
| existing gives it a shot at improvement. The alternative is it
| doesn't exist.
| muldvarp wrote:
| Was there? Software has always been a "speed of delivery over
| correctness" discipline. LLMs will just crank that up to 11.
| mrbn100ful wrote:
| Instead of spending half a day learning CAD basic, let's rebuild
| the worst version full of bug! Yays!
|
| Also, there is an easy to learn basic cad. It's called Tinkercad.
| WillAdams wrote:
| TinkerCAD only works for folks who are willing to get in bed w/
| AutoDesk and use a closed source project. See instead:
|
| https://cadoodlecad.com/
|
| though I just use BlockSCAD:
|
| https://www.blockscad3d.com/editor/
| bschwindHN wrote:
| > YAML-powered, vibe-coded
|
| Ah, bye!
| renegat0x0 wrote:
| - user reports a bug
|
| - dev asks vibes for help
|
| - llm rewrites half of the files
|
| - it does seem to fix the bug
|
| - 50 more bugs enter the chat
| seemaze wrote:
| I know, YAML has that effect on me too!
| singularity2001 wrote:
| If it is browser based where's the browser link?? I wish there
| was a downvote button for submissions.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Browser-based doesn't mean, neither even implies, they're
| hosting a public instance.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I'm the author, so I will address everyone's comments in here:
|
| > Why
|
| To scratch an itch. I wouldn't have ever made this if /I/ had to
| make it. I wanted a way to express the primitive solids in a way
| that my autistic brain understands (through rigid object
| definitions in code). I have another neurodivergent trait called
| aphantasia which doesn't let me easily (at all really) conjure
| images in my mind, everything is described as text in my head...
| literally like reading a book, bringing up an "image" takes me
| multiple seconds while I read through all my brain comments about
| an image, especially if I'm supposed to focus on one feature. So
| I had an LLM build a tool for me (why it is called JermCAD and
| not something more professional sounding) that works how my brain
| does.
|
| > How does it compare
|
| 100% doesn't. All of those tools are light years more advanced,
| and while I did try to use a CadQuery JS port, and another
| threejs CAD plugin, I couldn't get them to work, and I'm not a
| fan of python, so I stuck with what I knew font-end, web
| development.
|
| > AI Slop
|
| Yes. But again, this is a personal project that scratched an itch
| for me. It is a testament to how far you can get something in a
| few hours with an LLM, that would have taken months or years, but
| likely never would have happened, because who is going to invest
| months into redefining CAD to work the way that their specific
| neurodivergence works (Well maybe an autistic person hyperfixated
| on it, or me when I was 25 years younger).
|
| ---
|
| This software as it is probably isn't useful to anyone except for
| myself. I originally shared it a few days ago to start a
| conversation, it got no traction. I am not saying that this or
| any vibe-coded, AI slop should ever be production software, but
| why not use it for a very specific implementation of something?
| NortySpock wrote:
| Neato! I might just self-host this at home and explore using it
| for my 3d printing needs...
|
| Declarative constructed solid geometry sounds like how OpenSCAD
| works. I was curious if you took any inspiration from that
| project, or if you had found it but didn't suit your needs for
| some reason...
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| A friend of mine who ran a print farm actually told me about
| OpenSCAD when I shared a screenshot of my first design (a
| ball joint with armature). So I didn't take inspiration, but
| I plan on learning it just to figure out how they handle
| things like fillets. Because currently my fillets are blowing
| up. I contemplated just faking the fillets using an extrusion
| with a cylinder cut out of it, but if I can define edges in
| code and fillet them that would be better.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > So I didn't take inspiration, but I plan on learning it
| just to figure out how they handle things like fillets.
| Because currently my fillets are blowing up.
|
| They don't. So save yourself that trouble. You design the
| fillets right into the extrusions doing them after the fact
| is prohibitively expensive.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| >fillets
|
| They have to be done manually, usually using the Minkowski
| feature iirc.
|
| There's another similar tool called implicitcad that
| handles them better (it's also the only useful piece of
| software written in Haskell I've ever encountered)
| https://implicitcad.org/
| zem wrote:
| > it's also the only useful piece of software written in
| Haskell I've ever encountered
|
| pandoc and xmonad are super useful
| Thews wrote:
| There's actually openjscad and some available jscad-utils
| that can handle fillets
| noveltyaccount wrote:
| Fun project, it's okay to do things like this just because it's
| fun for you and you want to explore what's possible. Don't
| listen to the haters :)
| jlarocco wrote:
| You might get less pushback if you called it a 3D modeler and
| not CAD software.
|
| It looks like an okay CSG modeler, but it's missing a thousand
| features that it would need to be CAD software. There's no PMI,
| no views, no simulation, no unit handling, no material
| properties (like material, density, etc.), no product
| structure, no measurement and dimensioning, ...
| seemaze wrote:
| CAD (computer aided design) is a rather broad term used
| across many industries. There are many established CAD
| programs which do not offer PMI, simulation, or material
| properties. I do concur that views, dims, and units are table
| stakes.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| tinkercad has 5% of that. it is still a cad program.
| kouunji wrote:
| Very predictable amount of snark being aimed at this, but to me
| it's incredible that something of this complexity is even
| possible with a few hours of effort. It is irrelevant in this
| moment whether this has bugs or is useful to others; what it
| signals is pretty significant. In a year this kind of effort will
| be able to yield something even better.
| maxglute wrote:
| tfw faster to build cad than learn cad. great job, isn't this how
| earliest incarnation of cad use to work, i think they had stylus,
| human interface support fair early, but before that one would
| expect just imputing coordinates in punched tape or something
| equally tedious but obvious to some brains.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| My dad was a CAD engineer from the early 80s until he was laid
| off in 08, before that he was a drafter on pen and paper. He
| was the first one in his company to be given a computer for
| CAD, and he said this was basically what he would do.
|
| "action shape center_x center_y width height"
|
| But he said that everything was "conjoined" by default.
|
| He could be wrong (it was 45 years ago, and he's in his 70s
| now), but he would type: a {return} c {return} 0 {return} 0
| {return} 1 {return} 1 {return}
|
| That would add a cube. All the commands/params could be
| shorthand or long hand, but he was a two finger typist, so
| there is no way he'd have typed out an entire word that spanned
| multiple sides of the keyboard like "cube".
|
| You could subtract a sphere with "s {return} s" and I'm
| assuming you could intersect with "i" or similar, but he
| doesn't remember ever doing that.
| WillAdams wrote:
| For a current example of a tool which works along those lines
| see the venerable BRL-CAD:
|
| https://brlcad.org/
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| >code-based CAD solution
|
| Worth mentioning OpenSCAD & ImplicitCAD. There's also Antimony
| which has a graph-based modeling approach.
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