If you’re looking to try a new, open source 3D modeling CAD suite, especially one with automation-friendly interfaces, take a look at SolidCraft. It’s under development but there’s support for all the usual features like sketches, solid modeling, and constraints as well as a full parametric feature timeline.

https://github.com/tangency-labs/solidcraft

If you’re looking to try a new, open source 3D modeling CAD suite, especially one with automation-friendly interfaces, take a look at SolidCraft. It’s under development but there’s support for all the usual features like sketches, solid modeling, and constraints as well as a full parametric feature timeline.

A parametric timeline essentially means the model exists not as a single discrete object, but as the sum of a sequence of operations. One advantage of this is being able to set things up so that if one changes a value (like wall thickness), all the features that depend on that change automatically get rebuilt as a result. But there’s more!

Written entirely in Rust, SolidCraft can run as a desktop app or as a web app in a browser. Everything the user can do in SolidCraft is a command with JSON parameters, and it offers a built-in headless command line interface and even an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server built specifically to give AI agents a way to use the program, should one be interested in experimenting with that sort of thing.

We love and hate OpenSCAD. As programmers, we like describing objects we want to 3D print or otherwise model. As programmers, we hate all the strange things about OpenSCAD that make it not like a normal programming language. Maybe µCAD (or Microcad) is the answer. This new entry in the field lets you build things programmatically and is written in Rust.

In fact, the only way to get it right now is to build it from source using cargo. Assuming you already have Rust, that’s not hard. Simply enter: cargo install microcad. If you don’t already have Rust, well, then that’s a problem

https://microcad.xyz/

It’s likely that many of you use some form of CAD package, but how many of you have decided you didn’t like the software on offer? [Marcus Wu] did, and instead of griping, he wrote his own CAD software. It’s called MakerCAD, it’s published under an MIT licence, and you can try it yourself.

It’s written in Go, and it’s superficially similar to OpenSCAD in that the interface is through code. The similarity is skin deep though, as it provides the user with constraint solving as described in the video

MakerCAD Introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFXxCYjCpHU

An introduction to MakerCAD, a new “source CAD” for designing 3D parts.

Introducing MakerCAD
https://www.digitaltorque.com/articles/makercad-1/

https://github.com/marcuswu/makercad

https://hackaday.com/2016/12/24/open-source-parametric-cad-in-your-browser/

https://hackaday.com/2022/03/14/the-noble-effort-to-put-openscad-in-the-browser/

https://hackaday.com/2015/10/05/the-worst-cad-package-ever-is-still-handy/

Some people love tools in their browsers. Others hate them. We certainly do like to see just how far people can push the browser and version 0.6 of CHILI3D, a browser-based CAD program, certainly pushes.

The project’s GitHub repository shows an impressive slate of features, but also notes that things are changing as this is alpha software. The CAD kernel is a common one brought in via WebAssembly, so there shouldn’t be many simple bugs involving geometry.

https://chili3d.com/

https://github.com/xiangechen/chili3d

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kicad schematic-as-code typescript typecad

This project was created on 03/17/2025 and last updated 10 hours ago.
Description
TypeScript + KiCAD = typeCAD

- Write TypeScript code and build it into a KiCAD project
- Use all the normal software tools, but now for hardware
- Package your code into small packages
- Quickly combine known-working packages into larger projects

Instead of using the KiCAD schematic editor, you write code and build it into a KiCAD schematic.

typeCAD uses TypeScript. You don’t need extensive knowledge of TypeScript to get started.
If you’re familiar with any programming language, you can pick up the basics of TypeScript pretty quickly.
KiCAD

The normal flow in KiCAD is:
1. Create a project and schematic
2. Add components
3. Make connections
4. Lay out the board
typeCAD

typeCAD replaces steps 1-3. Instead of clicking and dragging to place components and make connections, TypeScript code is used.
This is how a schematic is created.

import { Schematic } from ‘@typecad/typecad’;

let typecad = new Schematic(‘typecad’);
typecad.create();

That code will create a KiCAD netlist named `typecad.net`, which you can then import into a KiCAD PCB file. No schematic file is created because it’s not needed.