Proposal: GUI-first, text-based mechanical CAD inspired by software engineering

29 points

a year ago

Most mechanical CAD tools (SolidWorks, Fusion, FreeCAD) still lock all modeling into opaque binary files. That makes it hard to track changes, collaborate with Git, or automate builds.

I’ve written a proposal for an alternative paradigm:

- GUI-first, like KiCad - visual modeling is the default

- Text-based source files (YAML/JSON) — readable, diffable, Git-friendly

- Separation of source and result - .step, .stl and previews are built artifacts

- Parametric logic is explicit - slot width = tab width + clearance

Works with Git, CI, or scripting — no more PDM lock-in The proposal is called SplitCAD, and it's just a concept for now — not a working tool. But I’d love to hear from anyone frustrated by the limitations of current mechanical CAD.

GitHub: https://github.com/yuanxun-yx/SplitCAD

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