🚧 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.
- 🦀 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
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
The CAD software landscape is divided between proprietary and open-source solutions, each with distinct advantages and limitations.
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
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
CADara bridges the gap between proprietary polish and open-source flexibility through:
-
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
-
User Experience
- Focusing on intuitive workflows
- Maintaining compatibility with familiar CAD concepts
- Prioritizing discoverability of features
-
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
-
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
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
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
- 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
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.
For detailed technical documentation and architecture plans, see the notes document. These notes represent initially planned features and may not reflect current implementation status.