4 ms·

i have almost zero knowledge of CAD, so can anyone comment on whether being able to run an industrial-strength CAD application inside a web browser is something

i have almost zero knowledge of CAD, so can anyone comment on whether being able to run an industrial-strength CAD application inside a web browser is something that people want? What use cases are driving this massive effort?

paulryanrogers 8y ago
Dabbled in CAD in school and shadowed a mechanical engineer in the late 90s. From what I saw some CAD users only need basic drawings with a few hundred or thousand lines. Even for modeling in 3D the games I was playing and modeling for looked more complex. Maybe it's different today or in certain industries.
bhouston 8y ago
Industrial CAD for cars and planes is CATIA, and that isn't AutoCAD. It uses too much memory to fit in a browser except as a remote desktop type application. AutoCAD, which is architectural CAD, has been in flash (AutoCAD WS) for more than 6 years so if flash can handle it, WebAssembly can handle it. OnShape is mechanical CAD has been pretty successful in pure JavaScript in the browser: https://onshape.com https://onshape.com SolidWorks is coming to the browser soon I understand as well.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  AutoCAD is not just the Autocad Architectural product. That may be the most dominant niche, but they produce most of the other CAD tools as well. AutoCAD Electrical is huge for industrial controls work - it's hard to say, IMO, whether architectural or electrical AutoCAD is more dominant in its field. Other products are used for PCB design, but for any discrete wires in machines, buildings, etc. it's almost universally AutoCAD. Solidworks doesn't even have a product. And Autocad Electrical is ideal for low-powered browser work, because it's just 2D line drawings with an occasional component wireframe. They also produce Autocad Inventor (and Fusion 360), which are mechanical CAD packages. Inventor is definitely a contender with Solidworks, CATIA, Pro-E, and other mechanical CAD. A car's sheet metal may have 80% probability to be designed in CATIA, but the press that forms it has (pulling numbers out of a hat) a 20% chance to be modeled in AutoCAD Inventor, a 90% chance to be wired to an AutoCAD Electrical schematic, and a 95% chance to be located in a building blueprinted with AutoCAD Architectural.
  - bhouston 8y ago
    You are confusing Autodesk, the company, with AutoCAD, the ACAD product.
    - rjsw 8y ago
      AutoCAD didn't start out as an Architectural product, it was just the first CAD system that could run on a microcomputer, it was originally marketed as a mechanical design system for smaller companies. It was also available a long time before people had even thought of a Building Information Model.
      - bhouston 8y ago
        What I am trying to say is that Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Fusion 360, and many of the other products he mentions are not technically AutoCAD. I was differentiating, as I thought others were, between Autodesk the company and AutoCAD the specific product.
samwillis 8y ago
It absolutely is something that companies want (not necessarily individual people). After a certain scale the biggest problem in CAD is not the actual 2D or 3D drawing, its file and data management. Most of the CAD industry is actually more focused on this as a problem to solve, businesses will spend fortunes on it. In the product design world its called PLM (Product lifecycle management) and in the Architectural wold its called BIM (Building information management). You can think of it as being similar to a combination of software version control, documentation systems, bug databases, specification systems, and even continuous integration systems. Almost every CAD package has its own PLM/BIM system and some are very powerful. The move to browser-based CAD enables you to build PLM and BIM systems that aren't file based, but are backed by a database and have versioning inherently built in. CAD parts or drawings are no longer discreet files but objects in a DB. My background is in product design and SolidWorks (dating from the 90's) and Creo (can be traced back to the 80s as Pro/E). Both of these feel very dated now. The new kids on the block are AutoDesk Fusion 360 (cloud-based, using a DB, but with a native front end) and OnShape (Fully Cloud/Browser based, original Solidworks team, https://www.onshape.com/ https://www.onshape.com/). Take a look at OnShape if you want to be amazed at what is possible in the browser! The 3D rendering is all done client side but with a live WebSocket connection to their servers for the Parametric Kernal and Constraint Solving, it's very clever.
- rjsw 8y ago
  Someone using a PLM system may not need to view every detail of the design, so being able to create lightweight clients in a browser is helpful. I have been involved in STEP [1] for quite a long time, there has always been the expectation that it could be implemented as a database. I'm currently on the fringes of the work to map the PLM standards onto RDF/OWL/SKOS. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303
- andyjohnson0 8y ago
  Thanks, thats an aspect that didn't occur to me. I have some experience with EDA (Electronic Design Automation) systems at the hobbyist level, and managing/versioning even simple design artefacts can be a pain. I can see how pro-level CAD would present considerable challenges. That said, there is obvious scope for vendor lock-in when designs are cloud hosted.
ISL 8y ago
What I'd really like is an open-source program with equivalent capabilities to those of SolidWorks 2005. It was sufficient for our needs then and would be sufficient for our needs now, had licenses not expired. Browser-based apps tend to disappear or change, and we need to reference/alter drawings and assemblies on decadal timescales.

paulryanrogers 8y ago

Dabbled in CAD in school and shadowed a mechanical engineer in the late 90s. From what I saw some CAD users only need basic drawings with a few hundred or thousand lines. Even for modeling in 3D the games I was playing and modeling for looked more complex. Maybe it's different today or in certain industries.

bhouston 8y ago

Industrial CAD for cars and planes is CATIA, and that isn't AutoCAD. It uses too much memory to fit in a browser except as a remote desktop type application. AutoCAD, which is architectural CAD, has been in flash (AutoCAD WS) for more than 6 years so if flash can handle it, WebAssembly can handle it. OnShape is mechanical CAD has been pretty successful in pure JavaScript in the browser: https://onshape.com https://onshape.com SolidWorks is coming to the browser soon I understand as well.

LeifCarrotson 8y ago
AutoCAD is not just the Autocad Architectural product. That may be the most dominant niche, but they produce most of the other CAD tools as well. AutoCAD Electrical is huge for industrial controls work - it's hard to say, IMO, whether architectural or electrical AutoCAD is more dominant in its field. Other products are used for PCB design, but for any discrete wires in machines, buildings, etc. it's almost universally AutoCAD. Solidworks doesn't even have a product. And Autocad Electrical is ideal for low-powered browser work, because it's just 2D line drawings with an occasional component wireframe. They also produce Autocad Inventor (and Fusion 360), which are mechanical CAD packages. Inventor is definitely a contender with Solidworks, CATIA, Pro-E, and other mechanical CAD. A car's sheet metal may have 80% probability to be designed in CATIA, but the press that forms it has (pulling numbers out of a hat) a 20% chance to be modeled in AutoCAD Inventor, a 90% chance to be wired to an AutoCAD Electrical schematic, and a 95% chance to be located in a building blueprinted with AutoCAD Architectural.
- bhouston 8y ago
  You are confusing Autodesk, the company, with AutoCAD, the ACAD product.
  - rjsw 8y ago
    AutoCAD didn't start out as an Architectural product, it was just the first CAD system that could run on a microcomputer, it was originally marketed as a mechanical design system for smaller companies. It was also available a long time before people had even thought of a Building Information Model.
    - bhouston 8y ago
      What I am trying to say is that Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Fusion 360, and many of the other products he mentions are not technically AutoCAD. I was differentiating, as I thought others were, between Autodesk the company and AutoCAD the specific product.

samwillis 8y ago

It absolutely is something that companies want (not necessarily individual people). After a certain scale the biggest problem in CAD is not the actual 2D or 3D drawing, its file and data management. Most of the CAD industry is actually more focused on this as a problem to solve, businesses will spend fortunes on it. In the product design world its called PLM (Product lifecycle management) and in the Architectural wold its called BIM (Building information management). You can think of it as being similar to a combination of software version control, documentation systems, bug databases, specification systems, and even continuous integration systems. Almost every CAD package has its own PLM/BIM system and some are very powerful. The move to browser-based CAD enables you to build PLM and BIM systems that aren't file based, but are backed by a database and have versioning inherently built in. CAD parts or drawings are no longer discreet files but objects in a DB. My background is in product design and SolidWorks (dating from the 90's) and Creo (can be traced back to the 80s as Pro/E). Both of these feel very dated now. The new kids on the block are AutoDesk Fusion 360 (cloud-based, using a DB, but with a native front end) and OnShape (Fully Cloud/Browser based, original Solidworks team, https://www.onshape.com/ https://www.onshape.com/). Take a look at OnShape if you want to be amazed at what is possible in the browser! The 3D rendering is all done client side but with a live WebSocket connection to their servers for the Parametric Kernal and Constraint Solving, it's very clever.

rjsw 8y ago
Someone using a PLM system may not need to view every detail of the design, so being able to create lightweight clients in a browser is helpful. I have been involved in STEP [1] for quite a long time, there has always been the expectation that it could be implemented as a database. I'm currently on the fringes of the work to map the PLM standards onto RDF/OWL/SKOS. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303
andyjohnson0 8y ago
Thanks, thats an aspect that didn't occur to me. I have some experience with EDA (Electronic Design Automation) systems at the hobbyist level, and managing/versioning even simple design artefacts can be a pain. I can see how pro-level CAD would present considerable challenges. That said, there is obvious scope for vendor lock-in when designs are cloud hosted.

ISL 8y ago

What I'd really like is an open-source program with equivalent capabilities to those of SolidWorks 2005. It was sufficient for our needs then and would be sufficient for our needs now, had licenses not expired. Browser-based apps tend to disappear or change, and we need to reference/alter drawings and assemblies on decadal timescales.