CADara (Work In Progress)

🚧 IMPORTANT: CADara is currently in early development and not yet ready for use. Development is active but will take considerable time to reach basic functionality. 🚧

CADara is an upcoming next-generation open-source parametric CAD software, designed with a focus on simplicity and user experience. Built on the robust OpenCASCADE B-Rep kernel and modern technologies like Rust, iced, and wgpu, CADara aims to be a user-friendly open-source CAD solution while maintaining power and flexibility.

🌟 Key Differentiators

• 🦀 Modern Rust Architecture: Leveraging Rust's type system for performance and reliability
• 👥 Intuitive UI/UX: Prioritizing ease of use as a core design principle
• 🔄 Advanced Version Control: Real-time collaboration and comprehensive history tracking
• 🔓 Fully Open-Source: Licensed under AGPLv3 to prevent vendor lock-in

🎯 Project Goals

CADara's vision is both clear and ambitious:

• 👥 User-Friendly: Redefining ease of use in open-source CAD
• 🚀 Modern Architecture: Built with Rust's type system to prevent common CAD software bugs
• 📂 Project-Based: Streamlined project management with linked parts and assemblies
• 🔧 Parametric Design: Flexible design modifications using a familiar history-based approach
• 💻 Cross-Platform: Seamless experience across desktop and web platforms
• 👥 Collaboration: Real-time editing with CRDT-based conflict resolution, even offline
• 🔄 Version Control: Advanced branching and merging capabilities
• 📜 Version History: Comprehensive tracking of design evolution, allowing precise historical views
• 🔓 Open-Source: Your designs remain yours, free from vendor lock-in

🆚 Current CAD Landscape

The CAD software landscape is divided between proprietary and open-source solutions, each with distinct advantages and limitations.

Proprietary Solutions

Professional tools like SolidWorks, Fusion 360, and Onshape dominate the market, offering:

• Polished, mostly intuitive user interfaces
• Comprehensive feature sets
• Professional support and training
• Regular updates and improvements

However, they come with significant drawbacks:

• Increasing subscription costs
• Vendor lock-in through proprietary file formats
• Limited platform availability (especially on Linux)
• Risk of feature removal or pricing changes
• Data accessibility concerns if subscriptions lapse

Existing Open-Source Alternatives

FreeCAD

• By far the most solid open source CAD application
• Has made significant progress with version 1.0
• Offers powerful features rivaling commercial solutions
• Large and active community
• Despite its capabilities, FreeCAD's underlying architecture can make it prone to bugs and unexpected behavior
• User experience has been a weak point, but recent initiatives are actively addressing this issue
• Complex workflows can be challenging to master

Other Applications

• BRL-CAD: Focus on solid modeling and ray-tracing
• CAD Sketcher: Blender-integrated parametric modeling
• CadQuery: Programming-based approach
• OpenSCAD: Script-based modeling
• Dune3D: Modern codebase with unique non-traditional workflow
• Most rely on CSG or scripting, limiting accessibility

Core Principles

CADara bridges the gap between proprietary polish and open-source flexibility through:

1. Modern Architecture

   • Using Rust's type system to prevent common CAD software bugs at compile-time
   • Building on proven technologies like OpenCASCADE
   • Designing for extensibility from the ground up

2. User Experience

   • Focusing on intuitive workflows
   • Maintaining compatibility with familiar CAD concepts
   • Prioritizing discoverability of features

3. Collaboration and Data Security

   • Advanced version control with branching and merging
   • Offline-first collaboration with CRDT-based sync capabilities
   • Continuous document history and autosave, allowing precise historical views
   • Licensed under AGPLv3 to ensure continued open access

4. Performance and Reliability

   • Utilizing wgpu for efficient GPU acceleration across platforms (Metal on macOS, DirectX on Windows, Vulkan on Linux, WebGL/WebGPU on web)
   • Implementing efficient caching and computation strategies

🎨 Interface Design

CADara's interface is designed with a focus on simplicity and efficiency while maintaining professional-grade functionality. Our UI/UX follows these key principles:

• Clean and Focused: Minimalist design that reduces cognitive load
• Contextual Tools: Tools and options appear when and where you need them
• Consistent Layout and Behavior: Familiar patterns across all workflows
• Discoverability through Context: Interactive tutorials, contextual tooltips, and a context-aware help system guide users to discover relevant features and tools.

View detailed interface mockups

🛣️ Roadmap to Basic Usability

Completed Components

• computegraph: Framework for editable computation DAGs
• Modular viewport widget with plugin system
• Module system for core components
• occara: High-level Rust bindings for OpenCASCADE
• WebAssembly support with C++ dependencies
• Basic project system foundation
• Caching system for computation and viewport

In Development

• CRDT-based project system for collaboration
• Custom widget library using iced
• 3D viewport selection system
• Stable reference system in occara
• Constraint-based sketching
• Basic modeling module comparable to industry standards

🤝 Contributing

I appreciate your interest in contributing to CADara! However, as the project is still in a very early stage, I am not yet ready to accept contributions. My current focus is on establishing the core architecture and reaching a basic level of functionality first.

📝 Additional Information

For detailed technical documentation and architecture plans, see the notes document. These notes represent initially planned features and may not reflect current implementation status.