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.
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....
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.
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.
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....
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.