Dune 3D 1.1.0 Released | Hacker News Reader

Dune 3D 1.1.0 Released

github.com

108 pointsclaytonwramsey46 comments

This looks pretty nice for a 1.1 - I have been looking for a cross-platform (inc. Linux) parametric CAD application that actually has a UI (I can use SolveSpace, but it's a pain) and that isn't crammed with eldritch horrors (I've tried to use FreeCAD so often it's almost a meme now). Maybe this will reduce my reliance on Shapr3D and Fusion...

You might also be interested in SALOME - it's designed as a CFD meshing interface, but the CAD part is basically "FreeCAD but sane".

Lucas K, can you email me? Yes I'm the solvespace maintainer. I can't find your email. Mine is same ID at g mail. I have a few topics you might be interested in.

One the chance that Lukas cannot react I could help establishing a contact, where can your mail be found, did 't find it on the solvespace website.

"email is the same ID at gmail" https://github.com/phkahler

Thanks for doing the work for me, was on my phone and not in the mood for an extended search

The footnote from the main page:

https://github.com/dune3d/dune3d

is notable:

>I ended up directly using solvespace's solver instead of the suggested wrapper code since it didn't expose all of the features I needed. I also had to patch the solver to make it sufficiently fast for the kinds of equations I was generating by symbolically solving equations where applicable.

There's also a top-level domain:

https://dune3d.org/

and documentation: https://docs.dune3d.org/en/latest/

>> make it sufficiently fast for the kinds of equations I was generating by symbolically solving equations where applicable.

I have to wonder if we could bring those changes back into Solvespace. Also which version of the solver he started from. We brought in Eigen a while back and it really helped performance.

Dune3D is CAD software.

Thank you. I clicked the link (expecting it to be related to the movies) and couldn't figure out what I was looking at based on the linked page.

I can't explain it, but there's something oddly unnerving about seeing the stock GTK widgets in a piece of software like a CAD or video editor.

GTK widgets are indeed offputting in general. I think it's partly that GTK is very easy to use, which means we've all used a lot of shitty GTK software due to the lower barrier to entry, and partly that at some point it got tangled up in GNOME's misguided efforts towards "convergence", which has left it looking big and clunky and in deliberate violation of 30+ years of UI tradition.

Purely anecdotally, the best software almost invariably uses either Qt, WxWidgets, or something homegrown.

I've been following this project for a little while and it's very exciting to me. It's cool to see some movement on it since FreeCAD hasn't seen a lot of development and the rest of the OSS parametric CAD field is rather inactive.

Solvespace is quite capable, but not very active lately, unfortunately.

Sorry. this isn't correct at all. FreeCAD development is very active and it's getting better every day. I'm using the developer versions because, there are just so many improvements happening to UI and usability. Its development process has also improved a lot since a commercial entity (ondsel.com), run by an active FreeCAD developer. started helping. Just checkout the latest release notes for 0.21, 0.22 and 1.0 if you haven't tried it for a while (sections for PartDesign and Sketcher workspaces are the most relevant, if you just want to design for e.g. 3D printing). https://wiki.freecad.org/Release_notes_1.0

Eventhough I will only use the upstream FLOSS version, I often refer people to https://ondsel.com/blog/ for an extensive summary of everything happening around FreeCAD.

Just downloaded the latest dev build after mainly using link-stage and have to say they did a great job. Either way more free CAD software is great and am glad nee things are happening around this as a hobbyist

Oh, I thought this was an OSS remake Dune II. How sad... heh.

Me too. But this might be even better. While I really like Fusion 360, it is proprietary. I've tried FreeCAD, but as much as I want to love it, it's painful to use.

Thrilled to have another option to check out.

Whoa, is this by the same guy who did the electronics CAD program Horizon EDA? Very impressed.

Frank Klepacki on soundtrack?

This is an impressive project because of how several existing libraries were leveraged and synthesized into a powerful tool. Keen insight and well executed.

Kudos for using "anticipated questions" instead of the always bogus "Frequently asked questions".

But brickbats for not having "does it run on linux?" in there as a question (I guess the answer is no).

https://docs.dune3d.org/en/latest/build-linux.html

Seems like it does run on linux

Sounds like it does. The docs have build instructions for Linux:

https://docs.dune3d.org/en/latest/build-linux.html

Knowing the person this would be the assumed default OS

Docs here: https://docs.dune3d.org/en/latest/

I love the idea of solvespace but it shits the bed on even simple geometries. Let alone no fillets. I will try this out and check if it's any good.

I played a bit with 1.0.0, it crashed a bit here and there... But it was fairly simple to use.

Granted, I've mostly been using tinkercad so far :)

How does this compare to AutoCAD?

How it compares: autocad is a military assault vehicle, and this is a bicycle. I.e. they're not really comparable at all, but I'd much rather use this.

"Dune 3D is a parametric 3D CAD application that supports STEP import/export, fillets and chamfers."

Since I thought this was some kind of remake of the Dune II RTS.

The choice for naming is indeed very poor.

It is terrible, actually.

Why would one do this? It isn't even slightly related to the product. Damn...

You're assuming that it was named with Dune the book in mind.. but dune is a word that is not owned by that franchise. Who knows what the name is supposed to mean.

It's not just me as you can see here.

Nobody says that the word is owned by a franchise but as you see, especially with the "3D" and the fact that the franchise is trending, it causes confusion.

Well, the timing is bad since the dune3d software was initially named only 7 months ago [1] (after the first new Dune movie), and just last month the second new Dune movie came out.

1: https://github.com/dune3d/dune3d/commit/3d17bc57e07ea39a7b89...

Java had nothing to do with coffee; nor Python snakes; nor Rust oxidation. The computing/IT industry just picks names for stuff that doesn't have much to do with anything.

Yeah but in all those cases, it's clear from the context that they are distinct from coffee, snakes, and oxidation.

"Snake 3d" would be more analogous here. Sure snake means something outside of computing, but it's also a famous piece of computing history (like Dune II) for which "3d" also makes sense as a suffix.

Yes they do, and they are unfortunate as we can see here many times over and in this case it is a currently popular franchise which also had some games and this thing which has neither something to do with the franchise, nor with a game or with sand dunes falls into the same pattern.

I doubt anybody would care if they'd named it after some coffee sort or a snake, where nothing of the above applies. There are not many Café games, for example.

Totally agree, I still have no idea why Frank Herbert named his novels after a hill of sand? /s

You are joking? Maybe you never read them. The planet Arrakis is a desert planet central to the novels. Lots of sand dunes, nothing else planet wide.

/s = joking. Also, the planet was also originally named Dune.

Thank you. I got all excited thinking they'd ported the OpenRA engine that runs Dune2k (https://www.openra.net/) to 3D or something.

Side note though: Funcom IS working on a Dune MMO: https://duneawakening.com/ It's 3D in the shooter sense (as opposed to VR) and uses Unreal Engine 5 for impressive graphics.

I somehow read "Duke3D" and started getting very confused when i read the patchnotes.

Same. I read Dune, and I read GitHub, and I got excited. I love reading game code so I ended up leaving a little disappointed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com