Great comment! I think the size and scope of BRep modeling kernels is lost on 99% CAD users. IMHO: I have reached the point where I think there should be a generation of library development before a CAD application is even considered. This is coming from a person who has spent 10 years on an open source cad application, so I am not naive. The modeling kernel, of course, is lacking but also 3d visualization needs some love. More options in that space, but still lacking.
Sidebar: My home plasma TV is a 3D capable one. Back in the 90's I used to use 3D to visualize models on SGI machines.
Fast forward to the mid 10's and I can hook up a laptop with nVidia GPU and run NX and the whole interface and model works in 3D!
Amazing. I love it, especially with a space controller.
There are maybe a handful who do that on even a very low basis.
That has always bothered me. Part of me knows some people have trouble and that another part knows the development gets even more expensive, but still your point is a solid one.
I am jealous. I ran UG(sorry will always be UG to me) for 15 years and didn't ever experience it in 3D. I did immediately fall in love with the spaceballs/3d controllers. I added the initial 3d controller support in FreeCAD years ago. If you are spaceball curious:
https://spacemice.org/index.php?title=Gallery
I evolved from pencil and paper, to text files, to minder. I stick to text and it works good for me. It is simple, fast to use, search works good, basic organization is there. Files are local and xml, so data is easy to extract if needed, backups and distribution are just file copy operations.
https://github.com/phase1geo/Minder
I think it easy to get trapped by formatting and publishing. IMHO: Notes are fast and not pretty. If/when I come to the situation where I want to share, then formats like markdown or latex etc are a better fit. When I have to start 'coding' my notes, it becomes a time burden and I end up skipping it. In complicated situations, I will go the other extreme and fire up inkscape.
Anybody building open source tools for c++ is great, so thanks. Most confusion for me happens around dynamic dispatch. I want a good tool to generate and control dynamic call graphs.
Thank you. I definitely could use help on the other platforms(mac, windows). I spent a huge amount of time deploying on those, which makes it great to hear it is running for you.
Sure any PRs for bugs are great. If you want to take on something ambitious, I would like to talk about it first so we waste as little developer time as possible.
brl-cad is CSG modeler with some BRep support. Opencascade is a BRep modeler that supports boolean operations. The industry gave up on CSG and went BRep decades ago.
Not entirely true. As an explicit edit method, sure, but several of the big-name non-parametric (i.e., solid modeling) commercial CAD systems are fundamentally still CSG representation under the hood. They just hide it well, typically under the guise of feature edit nomenclatures or editing constraints.
Can find indications it's CSG under the hood if it won't let you directly modify a surface without selecting some "convert to editable representation" option. TinkerCAD is an extreme example that's basically a pure CSG modeler (and probably the most popular CAD system to date, but I digress), but you won't find the term union, intersection, or CSG anywhere in its GUI. Solidworks and NX do a really good job hiding it.
I guess we have a disconnect. I am talking about modeling kernel geometric definitions and data structures. Whether NX has or doesn't have the boolean terms (union, intersect ...etc) doesn't change the fact that parasolid is BRep. Just because parasolid supports boolean operations, doesn't mean it is CSG.
IMHO:
Any shape defined by a CSG modeling kernel can be defined in a BRep modeling kernel. The reverse is not true, short of some kind of 'hack'. BOT(bag of triangles)? Hybrid with mesh modeling?
I have never used openscad, but from what I understand there would be 2 major differences. The first is the geometry engine. Openscad uses a mesh modeler, where cadseer uses boundary representation(opencascade). The second is the user interface. Openscad uses code/script to drive the model generation where cadseer uses user interaction to build a model generating dependency graph.
Cadseer is not better for stamping dies. That is just my background. I think cad is getting more into specialized industries now that the foundational stuff is more concrete. I don't think most people appreciate what it takes to develop a solid modeling kernel.
