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Off-topic: I’ve seen a few posts about CAD programs recently, and it reminded me of a product that I want but haven’t found yet. I often need to draw 2D vector

Off-topic: I’ve seen a few posts about CAD programs recently, and it reminded me of a product that I want but haven’t found yet. I often need to draw 2D vector graphics for digital or print. Since I suck a bezier curves (and they feel imprecise anyway) and manually arranging and combining geometric shapes can be tedious I want an interface for drawing that mimics the sketch function of SolidWorks or Fusion360 and the like with the constraint system and so on.

rsecora 6y ago
FreeCAD has an sketch [1] workbench with constrains. Once it's draw, you can extrude it, pad it, apply the geometric boolean operations, add/substract to create complex parts [2] from the result. [1] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Basic_Sketcher_Tutorial https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Basic_Sketcher_Tutorial [2] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/PartDesign_Workbench https://wiki.freecadweb.org/PartDesign_Workbench
J253 6y ago
I completely agree with this! I used Solidworks heavily for years and am so accustomed to drawing some lines, adding some constraints and dimensions with custom hot keys and boom I have my drawing nice neat and tidy exactly as I need it in no time. These days I don’t do any 3D modeling but I’ll need to jump into Inkscape every now and then to do some graphic design or 2D UI mockup type stuff and I wish I could easily replicate the Solidworks drawing workflow. I’ve found that I can get pretty close to the workflow I’m looking for in FreeCAD, but then I don’t have any of the artistic stuff I need. And obviously Inkscape has all the artistic stuff, but building a drawing with constraints and dimensions isn’t possible...or certainly not easy at least.
jml7c5 6y ago
I have also long desired something like this. I'd love a parametric vector (+ image) editor; it's an unfilled niche. (If any startup people are looking for ideas, here's your million dollar opportunity.) There are the CAD programs, like SolveSpace/AutoCad/QCAD, but they aren't really designed for illustration: you would have to constantly export the blueprint to style it. I think the closest you can get now is UI design software with constraint features, but that software isn't really made for free-form work like Illustrator/Inkscape. This discussion may be of interest to you, though it is not UI-based and none of the software has been open-sourced (yet): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21774018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21774018 EDIT: Looks like Inkscape can do a few vaguely CAD-like things with "live path effects", but it's by no means a proper constraint solver. See the feature request here for a full constraint solver, which includes a summary of past progress and proposals: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/-/issues/1465 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/-/issues/1465
- melville 6y ago
  Just curious: in what sense is that startup niche not yet filled by any of the usual 3d parametric CAD programs like Rhino etc.?
  - J253 6y ago
    The full blown 3D CAD programs _do_ have easily definable dimensions and a constraint solver for drawing sketches. The problem is that in these softwares, it’s typically assumed those sketches are going to be used to make a 3D part. So you’ll extrude the sketch along a line or sweep the sketch around an axis or something to create a 3D part. Consequently, what you can do artistically with the sketch ends there.* I’m not looking for that 3D aspect of the software. Once I have the sketch dimensioned and constrained, I want to start doing artistic stuff with it like changing the line style or color, adding a gradient fill, adding text inside it—-stuff you’d use Inkscape and the like to do. But Inkscape doesn’t have the constraint solver or easy to use dimensioning tool. *To be fair, you could probably export the line after fully defining it in CAD and import it into Inkscape, but that’s not much fun.

rsecora 6y ago

FreeCAD has an sketch [1] workbench with constrains. Once it's draw, you can extrude it, pad it, apply the geometric boolean operations, add/substract to create complex parts [2] from the result. [1] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Basic_Sketcher_Tutorial https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Basic_Sketcher_Tutorial [2] https://wiki.freecadweb.org/PartDesign_Workbench https://wiki.freecadweb.org/PartDesign_Workbench

J253 6y ago

I completely agree with this! I used Solidworks heavily for years and am so accustomed to drawing some lines, adding some constraints and dimensions with custom hot keys and boom I have my drawing nice neat and tidy exactly as I need it in no time. These days I don’t do any 3D modeling but I’ll need to jump into Inkscape every now and then to do some graphic design or 2D UI mockup type stuff and I wish I could easily replicate the Solidworks drawing workflow. I’ve found that I can get pretty close to the workflow I’m looking for in FreeCAD, but then I don’t have any of the artistic stuff I need. And obviously Inkscape has all the artistic stuff, but building a drawing with constraints and dimensions isn’t possible...or certainly not easy at least.

jml7c5 6y ago

I have also long desired something like this. I'd love a parametric vector (+ image) editor; it's an unfilled niche. (If any startup people are looking for ideas, here's your million dollar opportunity.) There are the CAD programs, like SolveSpace/AutoCad/QCAD, but they aren't really designed for illustration: you would have to constantly export the blueprint to style it. I think the closest you can get now is UI design software with constraint features, but that software isn't really made for free-form work like Illustrator/Inkscape. This discussion may be of interest to you, though it is not UI-based and none of the software has been open-sourced (yet): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21774018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21774018 EDIT: Looks like Inkscape can do a few vaguely CAD-like things with "live path effects", but it's by no means a proper constraint solver. See the feature request here for a full constraint solver, which includes a summary of past progress and proposals: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/-/issues/1465 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/-/issues/1465

melville 6y ago
Just curious: in what sense is that startup niche not yet filled by any of the usual 3d parametric CAD programs like Rhino etc.?
- J253 6y ago
  The full blown 3D CAD programs _do_ have easily definable dimensions and a constraint solver for drawing sketches. The problem is that in these softwares, it’s typically assumed those sketches are going to be used to make a 3D part. So you’ll extrude the sketch along a line or sweep the sketch around an axis or something to create a 3D part. Consequently, what you can do artistically with the sketch ends there.* I’m not looking for that 3D aspect of the software. Once I have the sketch dimensioned and constrained, I want to start doing artistic stuff with it like changing the line style or color, adding a gradient fill, adding text inside it—-stuff you’d use Inkscape and the like to do. But Inkscape doesn’t have the constraint solver or easy to use dimensioning tool. *To be fair, you could probably export the line after fully defining it in CAD and import it into Inkscape, but that’s not much fun.