JeremyHerrman

Wow you're right - over the past 9 days zepto's generated ~5 pages of comments defending Apple's scanning. Why would one dedicate so much time and effort to rise to the defense of a trillion dollar company?

Warp looks great, but what do I do next? Where's the call to action?

There is no download link, no "sign-up to hear more". With all of the thought and polish that went into this I'm surprised to see the ball dropped at the most important step!

All of the reasons they give for free software (or more specifically mentioned in the article, "gnu software") apply to good ol' open source software too (which is free as in free of FSF dogma & rms).

Let's look at the reasons:

> free software gets the whole community involved in working together to fix problems.

> developers really care about reliability

> an author who makes the source code available for all to see puts his reputation on the line, and had better make the software clean and clear, on pain of the community's disapproval.

The injection of [GNU/] in the quote is pretty funny too.

Just wait until you find out what it takes to build a CAD program and you'll be happy Fusion 360 is only $500/year.

If you want to build each individual piece without licensing from Siemens/Dassault, then yes this would compare to a moonshot.

Parasolid, the CAD kernel owned by Siemens, is more than 30 years old at this point. The same amount of effort has gone into many of the other building blocks as well. OPENCASCADE is a FOSS CAD kernel but doesn't work well for real CAD, and support is hard to come by for companies building on it.

Most startups tend to license these tools instead of building them, but that comes at a large cost that must be pushed down to customers, hence the $$$$ cost of CAD today.

> How hard is to build the equivalent of "Affinity Photo" to Autodesk Fusion 360? Maybe this is a good startup idea.

Answer: It's extremely hard to build any equivalent to Fusion 360 or any full featured CAD/CAM tool. This is not a weekend hackathon problem!

There are so many fundamental building blocks, with many requiring teams of PhDs to produce: CAD kernels, constraint solvers, file format interop, sketching tools, assembly support (mating), simulation, etc... Not to mention the manufacturing specific modeling tools for sheet metal, generative design for milling & 3D printing.

It's a shame that Autodesk is cutting back on features for free personal use, especially the removal of STEP export (an open interchange format) and multi-axis CAM (used to convert 3D models into instructions for milling machines & lathes).

But - $495 for a CAD program as fully featured as Fusion 360 is a steal compared to $$$$ Solidworks & competitors. Plus it's cross platform which you don't typically find in the world of CAD.

Is FreeCAD a viable alternative? Not even close.

Should there be a usable FOSS CAD program? hell yes!

Unfortunately the FOSS foundations required to build a real CAD program haven't materialized in cohesive way. There are so many pieces, with many requiring teams of PhDs to produce: CAD kernels, constraint solvers, file format interop, sketching tools, assembly support (mating), simulation, etc... There are some advanced projects out there like the OPENCASCADE kernel, but Parasolid is more reliable and has real support through Siemens.

Thanks for describing both the technical and business challenges involved in running real services that real people rely on, even when the service appears simple and straightforward to outsiders (even smart hn commenters). Though, it still sucks to have yet another product enter the Google Graveyard.

In general, I see this type of dismissiveness way too often - e.g. "What's the big deal? I could build this in a weekend." or "Why doesn't big company X just do this simple thing?" It's only when people actually try to build a business around even the most trivial of problem that they realize the complexities involved with long term support.

FYI this comment is getting roasted on twitter https://twitter.com/browserdotsys/status/1261100295704190981

For those wondering about why the article says "Two atoms alone can’t form a molecule, it takes at least three to do chemistry", here's another explanation from the reddit thread [0]

> Each atom has some amount of energy associated with it. If you just bring two atoms together, the total energy is simply the sum of their individual energies. This state is typically referred to as an excited state. However, the stable bonded form of the two atoms actually has a lower energy. So to go from two separate atoms to two bonded atoms, the atoms have to first collide and form the excited state and then lose some amount of energy to go to the stable state. If they don’t lose that energy, then they can and will break apart again. One way to lose that energy is via collision with the third atom.

> In normal systems where you have tons of atoms flying around, collisions happen very frequently, so you can typically assume that the stabilization will happen immediately following the reaction. This is why the idea that stabilization is an important step in a chemical reaction is typically not covered in intro chemistry. However, it’s not uncommon to have conditions where that assumption does not hold. This then gets into the concept of pressure dependent reaction kinetics, which studies the effect of having slow stabilization.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/f7mqwl/physicists_...

That's apparently also why blender had such unusual UX (like right click to select) - it's rooted in Amiga conventions.

Super cool!

Does anyone know alternative non-random dot approaches to autostereogram generation?

Seeing the random dot approach in video highlights the lack of temporal coherence across frames.

There's a lot that can go wrong, and it's too much work & tech integration for most shops to make the investment.

Even if you have the 3D models for everything involved: tooling, tool holders, stock material, fixtures, CNC machine, along with the instructions for the movement of all of it, there are still many opportunities for both configuration errors and runtime crashes.

For instance, CAM tools usually simulation axis movements only, before they've been converted to gcode/NC. If there's a bug in your post-processor that generates gcode or if it doesn't perfectly match your machine configuration, you're going to crash.

Even if you use a simulation tool like Vericut or NCSIMUL, which both simulate using the actual gcode, the physical machine settings may be out of sync, or there could be a wrong piece of stock material loaded or some foreign object (a wrench) that causes a crash.

Probing routines and careful selection of Work Coordinate Systems can help verify/eliminate some of these unknowns at runtime, but it's still no guarantee that the part will come out right.

Hardware is hard!

Dismissing others' success, minimizing the importance of non-technical founders (vision/recruiting/deal-closing), downplaying well-executed technology (computer vision work by https://twitter.com/nashlie_s), and a dismissive arrogant tone... Typical HN commenter.

This is an exciting time for those of us working on computational geometry to better understand 3D shapes across many industries.

In addition to the architectures mentioned in this great overview, I'm excited to see progress on spectral and geodesic CNNs for graphs and manifolds. Check out this other fantastic source for info on 3D ML: http://geometricdeeplearning.com

As a college freshmen in 2003, I used my once in a lifetime Apple Student Developer 20% discount on a stacked PowerMac G5 dual 2.0GHz. I loved that machine and couldn't believe how snappy OS X was on it. The way I tested UI speed then was clicking on a menu item (say the File menu), and moving my mouse back and forth on the other menu items as fast as I could — the G5 was the first computer I had that could keep up and show all of the sub menus in a flash without stuttering.

I didn't see any ad blocker recommendations in the comments, so I searched and came across a list on Tom's Hardware of the best ad blockers of 2017. The funny part is that Tom's Hardware was FILLED with these exact kind of ads from algovid and adaptv. Even worse, the list is in a carousel / slideshow format so you have to keep clicking if you didn't GTFO like I did.

Thanks for the questions!

It's mostly driven by what our customers have asked for. Subtractive processes like CNC have a high barrier to entry (compared to additive), so we started there to make it easier for everyone to get quality parts easily and quickly. Aluminum is a great material that you see a lot in both prototype and final products across industries.

The CAD integrations, materials, and part complexity we support are constantly improving - much more to come in 2017!

There are ways to help avoid many types of failures & machine crashes that beginners encounter, but solutions tend to involve physical and software integration that most machine shops just don't have the expertise to build or margins to justify spending on.

(disclaimer - Plethora cofounder/CTO here)

Our goal at Plethora is to make hardware as easy as software. One question we ask ourselves is why can a small team of software devs push out an app in a few days / weeks when a hardware product takes a sizable kickstarter/VC round and months / years? It comes down to:

- great tools

- fast iteration

- easy deployment

- straightforward scalability

To achieve this kind of agility with hardware, this means removing the friction at every step of the product lifecycle.

One half is in the design & ordering of custom parts. CAD packages today are powerful and it’s very easy to design beautiful parts that are completely unmanufacturable. The Plethora add-in analyzes parts in a few seconds, provides helpful hints on manufacturability, instant pricing and ordering. We went with a plugin for existing CAD programs because getting people to switch CAD programs is like asking a programmer to switch code editors - extremely difficult unless the value of the new tool is orders of magnitude greater than that of the incumbent.

The other half of the friction in manufacturing is when the part enters production. Plethora isn’t just a pretty face on a traditional machine shop - we’ve been working for years to automate the extremely manual process of converting a 3D model into instructions for a machine to produce. This automation enables quick turnaround and no minimum order quantities - which allows teams to have more iterations and faster deployment of their products.

Back in 2011 if you googled "blender is ", you get these autocompleted options:

blender is slow

blender is too hard

blender is hard to use

I know this because I was so frustrated as a newcomer and took a screenshot that I still have today.

Now if you google "blender is " today, you get these:

blender is hard

blender is damaged

blender is confusing

blender is free

blender is slow

In 2013 Andrew Price led an effort to work with the Blender community to point out why so many people have difficulty with Blender's UI. Check out the video & transcript here: http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/fixing-blender-part-1-wh...

Despite being a thoughtful and very patient man who made a great case, Andrew was met with a lot of pushback from the community that already thought Blender's UI was easy and usable. Unfortunately in the years since not a whole lot has changed (some improvements like tabs, context menus, and not assuming users have a numpad and 3 button mouse).

Blender tries to be everything to everyone - a game engine, a sculpting modeler, a mechanical CAD modeler, a video editor, and a dozen other things. What you actually get is a mess wrapped in a UI that is alien to everyone except for the initiated. There's a reason why Autodesk and others have so many individual products catered to industries and use cases - it's because there's simplicity in specialization.

In chrome you can go to the address bar, add a "?" before the http and hit enter, and click the first link in the search results for the full article.

Thanks!!

Yes! Using ResEdit to upgrade my ship and change game dialog was my intro to hex & tweaking programs. It was thrilling to find snippets of storylines I hadn't played yet and adding weapons like the forklift that I had never seen during real gameplay.

Plethora - https://www.plethora.com - San Francisco, CA

Plethora is building the "Full-Auto Factory of the Future" - giving you the engineering superpowers to make hardware as easy as software. We use custom robotics and advanced software to automatically manufacture prototype and production parts using CNC milling. We're well funded from top investors, generating revenue w/ growth, team of 23, and lots of fun/hard problems.

+ Head of Engineering - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=23

+ Head of Product - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=22

+ Computational Geometry Software Engineer - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=19

+ Computational Geometry Engineer for CAM (Applied Math) - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=15

+ Computational Geometry Engineer for CAD (Applied Math) - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=16

+ Quality Assurance Engineer - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=17

+ Visual Communication Designer - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=14

+ Director of Marketing - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=5

+ Office Manager - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=18

+ Production Manager - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=24

+ Automation & Infrastructure Technician - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=21

+ Shop Technician - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=20

Email me (founder): jeremy@plethora.com Also happy to answer any questions below!

Plethora - http://plethora.com - San Francisco, CA

Plethora is building the "Full-Auto Factory of the Future" - giving you the engineering superpowers to make hardware as easy as software.

We use custom robotics and advanced software to automatically manufacture prototype and production parts using CNC milling.

We're well funded from top investors, generating revenue w/ growth, team of 20, and lots of fun/hard problems.

Computational Geometry Engineer for CAM (Applied Math) - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=15

Computational Geometry Engineer for CAD (Applied Math) - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=16

Quality Assurance Engineer - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=17

Visual Communication Designer - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=14

Marketing Generalist - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=5

Office Manager - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=18

Profile: https://angel.co/plethora

Email me (founder): jeremy@plethora.com

Also happy to answer any questions below!

Plethora - http://plethora.com - San Francisco, CA

Plethora is building the "Full-Auto Factory of the Future" - giving you the engineering superpowers to make hardware as easy as software.

We use custom robotics and advanced software to automatically manufacture prototype and production parts using CNC milling.

We're well funded from top investors, generating revenue w/ growth, team of 20, and lots of fun/hard problems.

★ Computational Geometry Engineer for CAM (Applied Math) - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=15

★ Computational Geometry Engineer for CAD (Applied Math) - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=16

★ Quality Assurance Engineer - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=17

★ Visual Communication Designer - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=14

★ Technical Recruiter - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=12

★ Marketing Generalist - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=5

Profile: https://angel.co/plethora

Email me (founder): jeremy@plethora.com

Also happy to answer any questions below!

Thanks! A picture may be worth 1000 words, but animated gifs are priceless, at least when trying to explain manufacturability concepts.

Plethora - http://plethora.com - San Francisco, CA

Plethora is building the "Full-Auto Factory of the Future" - giving you the engineering superpowers to make hardware as easy as software.

We use custom robotics and advanced software to automatically manufacture prototype and production parts using CNC milling.

We're well funded from top investors, generating revenue w/ growth, team of 20, and lots of fun/hard problems.

★ Computational Geometry / Applied Math - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=4

★ Backend Engineer - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=13

★ Technical Recruiter - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=12

★ Marketing Generalist - https://plethora.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=5

Profile: https://angel.co/plethora

Email me (founder): jeremy@plethora.com

Also happy to answer any questions below!

"The problem is that these requirements are not communicated to the user during the modelling process, so the model that the user designs is not well optimised to be printed, and must often be fixed with other software."

I couldn't agree more - finding out your design won't work after you've manufactured it is sort of like finding out your code won't compile after you've deployed. There needs to be better feedback during the design phase to make hardware as easy and fast as software.

This is exactly the problem we're trying to solve at Plethora, albeit with CNC milling instead of 3D printing. We have an add-in for 3D modelling programs that tells you manufacturability issues in real time as you design.

For those who are interested, check it out here: https://www.plethora.com/how