I've been tapering off maintenance since 2016 or so, but it has a more actively-maintained fork over at https://github.com/nsfm/stibium (albeit with heavy LLM assistance, because it's 2026!)
YMMV – I haven't used it or closely inspected the changes, but have corresponded with the author, who seems genuinely dedicated in the success of the project.
To anyone else who had to parse early KiCad file formats, where the parentheses and quoting on S-expressions was more of a guideline than a rule, I salute you.
It's not really useless though. Yes, in some dimensions it is terrible compared to GUI parametric CAD. But in other dimensions it is far more powerful and lets you build really complex stuff quickly and easily.
do you know of a traditional CAD program which could be used to drive such designs/projects in a useful fashion? I'm currently contemplating a re-write to use a Domain Specific Language....
Would you be interested in evaluating (or having your LLMs check out) my geometry kernel Aetheris for your project? I already have DSL (called Firmament) parser/lexer/AST part down, and it is designed to be easy to extend, so you don't have to write everything from scratch.
One of my goals when I built the kernel is I want to make building a pro grade CAD software as easy as wrapping a web frontend around the Aetheris libraries. It's still very much an aspirational goal though.
You might also like FluidCAD (I'm the author). It uses js as scripting, but all features can be done through the UI. It has a constraint based 2D sketcher, timeline and assemblies.
This could use a (2015) label :)
I've been tapering off maintenance since 2016 or so, but it has a more actively-maintained fork over at https://github.com/nsfm/stibium (albeit with heavy LLM assistance, because it's 2026!)
YMMV – I haven't used it or closely inspected the changes, but have corresponded with the author, who seems genuinely dedicated in the success of the project.
What are you working on these days?
This probably merits noting that the whole Code CAD thing is getting pushed very hard lately with many new AI-driven projects.
I will note the following projects which have made recent advancements:
- OpenSCAD --- the hopefully final Release Candidate for the long-awaited update is now available: https://openscad.org/downloads.html#rc
- PythonSCAD --- for folks who want variables which change and so forth: https://www.pythonscad.org/
- CADquery --- https://cadquery.github.io/
- Build123D --- https://github.com/gumyr/build123d
Longer list/discussion at: https://github.com/Irev-Dev/curated-code-cad
Also, a more recent project by Matt Keeter, Halfspace was announced recently but didn't get much discussion here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49881890
To anyone else who had to parse early KiCad file formats, where the parentheses and quoting on S-expressions was more of a guideline than a rule, I salute you.
I was all ready to say how useless code-based CAD usually is (like OpenSCAD), but this actually looks pretty sick.
If you could add support for SolveSpace's 2D sketcher, and also bevels/fillets, then this might actually be useful.
It's not really useless though. Yes, in some dimensions it is terrible compared to GUI parametric CAD. But in other dimensions it is far more powerful and lets you build really complex stuff quickly and easily.
I am currently trying to apply code-based CAD principles to my current project:
https://studio.flet.dev/run/bicQWc3Aul
do you know of a traditional CAD program which could be used to drive such designs/projects in a useful fashion? I'm currently contemplating a re-write to use a Domain Specific Language....
Would you be interested in evaluating (or having your LLMs check out) my geometry kernel Aetheris for your project? I already have DSL (called Firmament) parser/lexer/AST part down, and it is designed to be easy to extend, so you don't have to write everything from scratch.
https://github.com/yuechen-li-dev/Aetheris
One of my goals when I built the kernel is I want to make building a pro grade CAD software as easy as wrapping a web frontend around the Aetheris libraries. It's still very much an aspirational goal though.
What is your beef with code based, parametric CAD? It's pretty neat.
You might also like FluidCAD (I'm the author). It uses js as scripting, but all features can be done through the UI. It has a constraint based 2D sketcher, timeline and assemblies.