Comment by sherbondy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sherbondy | Hacker News Reader

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One potential source of disruption here (though I’m sure many folks will likewise feel it is frustrating to be locked into a SaaS model), is we are starting to see several intriguing startups building browser-based CAD software that are serious contenders for “the Figma of Architecture/BIM” crown, with the likes of:

Arcol (http://arcol.io), Infurnia (https://www.infurnia.com/), Qonic (https://www.qonic.com/), and Snaptrude (https://www.snaptrude.com).

Here’s nice little write-up about this emerging space from upFront: https://www.upfrontezine.com/2022/04/upf-1128-1.html

It remains to be seen if they will manage to out-compete the Goliath that is Autodesk or simply get acquired/assimilated, but it is exciting to see some fervent activity in this space.

Better yet if several of them take a “freemium” approach and students/hobbyists/freelancers are able to use a polished, user-friendly packaging of this incredible CAD technology for free (as in beer).

I love free software, open source, and amazing projects like Blender (it is a true anomaly & gem in the OSS world, re: professional-grade end-user applications), but sometimes the profit motive goes a long way towards creating delightful and approachable user experiences that empower people.

(Though I’m likewise rooting for an open source offering in this space to really take off!)

> Autodesk or simply get acquired/assimilated

This is not even a question, there is no room to wonder. Autodesk WILL buy and KILL whatever software that threatens its own.

Even in 2008, they just bought and killed one of their competitor in VFX, Softimage. Assuring everyone they wont kill it. This was a big deal. And ofc they killed it, basically telling their customers to go learn Max or Maya.

What happens if an open source alternative starts to exist? You can't buy open source.

I think it's an immense hurdle. Sweating all of the tiny details, and encoding arcane domain knowledge, requires a staggering amount of labor.

Also, the users don't care. I work with a lot of engineers. Outside of actual programmers, most people are ambivalent about open source, or still even think the whole idea is weird.

They're not paying for it themselves. If their employer, and competing employers, are willing to pay for it, they're happy. Also, it creates an entry barrier that protects their value.

Changing to a different app is a hardship -- they even hate it when a new version gets installed and breaks all of their work flows, many of which are carefully documented. The top feature request of all institutional software users is: "Please don't change anything."

You can buy the core contributors.

> Better yet if several of them take a “freemium” approach and students/hobbyists/freelancers are able to use a polished, user-friendly packaging of this incredible CAD technology for free (as in beer).

This was pretty much Fusion 360’s approach. These unsustainable businesses models inevitably lead to a bait and switch.

The software you link to is nice but BIM is not CAD/CAM.

Agreed, the "Figma for BIM" space is exciting. We're lucky to be backed by Dylan and some awesome AEC folks as we at Arcol try to re-think building design.

Yes, there's definitely a lot to be said for open source software, we're big supporters of it at Arcol and hope we're able to contribute to some of those projects in a meaningful way over the next few years.

Why is "browser-based" a selling point here?

If it's anything like onshape (the only browser based CAD I know of), browser based means: everyone uses the same version of the software, you don't have to wrestle your it department for installation rights, you can login and work on your designs from anywhere with any average laptop, there are no files (houseV3finalfinal), probably proper baked in version control with branching and merging... everything software developers take for granted that we poor CAD designers only can dream of.

A browser based collaborative CAD tool appears to be a great idea. Rendering is now longer the bottleneck in computation and Nurbs data is actually lightweight. Computation heavy tasks like the geometry engine could be done locally. However developing a geometry engine or nurbs kernel is quite a challenge- harder than any game engine.

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