Aircad - Professional 2D drafting and 3D modeling in the browser
Show HN: Aircad – Professional drafting and 3D modeling in the browser
Aircad brings professional CAD to your browser with no installs—combining precision 2D drafting and NURBS-based 3D solid modeling in one fast workspace, complete with a familiar command line. It opens your DWGs with layouts, blocks, and dimensions intact, and handles 250,000+ entities while staying smooth. Real-time multiplayer editing, unlimited version history, and built-in comments mean no more emailed copies or "final_v3." An optional AI agent drafts edits right in your drawing—always waiting for your approval—and a JavaScript scripting API lets you build custom commands. Document everything with full annotation, GD&T, and print-exact layouts.
One source of truth for every drawing. No emailed copies, no files checked out, no "final_v3."
- YuechenLi
Figure I try pitching at least, but would you consider evaluating my Aetheris kernel to use as Aircad's geometry kernel over OCCT?
https://github.com/yuechen-li-dev/Aetheris
There are currently a lot of newer browser CAD projects that already wraps OCCT WASM, like FluidCAD and Chili3D. And as you said previously, current CAD tools are slow to improve, and part of the reason is because of using kernels first built in the 1980s, and projects like Shapr3D and Plasticity both hit limitations of their existing kernels and switched to Parasolid when their project got bigger, and OCCT's per entity tolerance issue is pretty well know by now.
On another topic, getting a plate with thousands of holes to mesh in under a second is some serious performance, and I do agree with your conclusion that most CAD apps are slow not because of programming language but because accurate NURBS math is inherently slow, but their is also the issues with the 2D constraint solver and fillet/boolean algorithms too. Happy to talk more about the geometry kernel stuff too.
- sincman
What is the geometry kernel? That's always the first question I have.
- mristroph
Just checked it out; the whole experience is incredibly smooth.