what if i made my own cad platform

LOG 202502060017 #log

so i've been following yacine's dingcad progress on x and honestly it's been inspiring watching him just... do it? like, he decided to build a cad platform and started shipping one.

last night something clicked. instead of diving deeper into dingcad to learn how to use it, i was like "what if i just... built my own?" 😅

next thing i know it's 3am and i'm knee deep in manifold.js and three.js, cooking up my own little cad platform. it's funny how these things happen - one minute you're doom scrolling x, the next you're implementing transform controls and dreaming up cool features.

the wild part? it's almost easier to build a cad platform now than it is to make a proper 3d model in one. yacine's got this incredibly complex demo model in dingcad while i'm over here like "behold, my cylinder primitive!" but hey, we all start somewhere right? i'll figure out the modeling part... eventually. right now i'm too busy adding more features to the platform itself 😂

Yuckiecad 1

i've got the basics working:
- primitive shapes (yes, including the ol' cylinder)
- transform controls for moving/rotating/scaling
- materials system with a bunch of options
- wireframe mode for when you wanna feel extra technical

Yuckiecad Wire

but the stuff i'm excited for and what what's coming - cooking up some a video timeline style feature with playback and versioning. it's gonna be wild if it all comes together.

build your model and then export it and a timelapse showing the design process to share.

right now it's running locally while i iron out some quirks, but the plan is to deploy it as cad.johnf.work once it's ready for prime time. tried snagging yuckie.cad but sadly that's not a thing (yet? c'mon icann, do it for the culture).

it's pretty insane how fast you can ship something like this now. between manifold.js handling the heavy lifting and three.js making everything look pretty, i have a solid foundation to build on from here. throw in some zustand for state management, and by golly, i made a dang cad platform.

✌️