This is the English reading version of the Dutch news item Vijf nieuwe CAD-projecten in één video, en wat er al werkt.
The YouTube channel InspirationTuts put five new CAD projects in one video, all built in a short time with help from AI. The video is called “New 3D CAD Software That Will change Everything” and covers what is in them today and what is still on the roadmap.
Most of it is about SolidCraft, a free open-source parametric CAD programme by Brandon, known on GitHub as Harborack. The project started in early October as SoftCraft and is now called SolidCraft; the early description called it a clean-room implementation of Fusion. It has sketches with dimensions and constraints, extrude, revolve, sweep and loft, fillets, chamfers, shells, holes, threads, patterns and booleans, with a timeline you can step back through. There are also assemblies with joints, motion studies, interference checks, sheet metal with flanges and flat pattern, and plastic part tools such as ribs and snap fits. According to the video the roadmap still lists work on modelling robustness, blends and assemblies; full drawings, CAM and simulation are postponed.
Four other projects come past as well. CadCraft for drafting in AutoCAD style with DWG and DXF, Open CAD Studio which combines 2D drafting and 3D modelling in one programme with DWG reading and writing, Materializer which runs on OpenSCAD and works on desktop, Android and iPad, and Soma, in which an AI assistant builds and revises the model while keeping parameters and history.
His expectation: AI makes life hard for Autodesk mainly at the cheap end of the market, large professional customers stay where they are for now, and the first users are people who need only part of an expensive package. He does not expect lower subscription prices; rather that Autodesk defends its price with automation and paid AI.
This site tracks all these projects: what each release adds, what does not work yet and where the limits are. If you want to follow the developments, this is the place to keep watching.