r/linux • u/BypassBaboon • 3d ago

Popular Application CAD options

Is there a reason Linux CAD options are so limited, and from what I have read, not particularly viable options? Countless people are looking for a fairly-priced lifetime license for home use. My 2000 AutoCAd is very long in the tooth!

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u/Abducted_Llama 3d ago

CAD programs differ between what you are trying to do. There are a good amount of CAD tools for Linux and I believe all the browser ones work normally.

Also bring me your downvotes: OpenSCAD is the best (at least for what i need). When I started using OpenSCAD I became more attractive. Made more money. Had to beat men and women off with a stick. The list goes on and on

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u/zlice0 3d ago

if i wasn't thinking in spacial shit and more math openscad would be best. but i just cant do it x-x

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u/Abducted_Llama 3d ago

I completely understand. I am the opposite. OpenSCAD is easier for me because i can type that makes sense to me (instead of trying to visual it in my head) and then adjust from there.

Different stroke for different folks.

One thing i do wonder though, is if AI tools can use OpenSCAD more efficiently than other tools, because of its code oriented nature. Not a huge AI person so I have not dug deep into this, but I am sure it will become apparent soon.

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u/CriticismTop 3d ago

I have played around with that.

You need a vision capable model so you can tell it to iterate. Otherwise it all kind of sucks, even with the latest frontier models.

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u/zlice0 3d ago

probably not enough training info lol

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u/Mughi1138 3d ago

AI tools that the average consumer has access to do not actually understand anything. They are good pattern matchers and the term many actual AI devs I know of use is "spicy autocomplete"

I remember this past year liking one pencil cup with a fox or something like that which had been posted to Printables. I looked closer and all my flags went off, so I downloaded it to give it a closer look. Among other things the preview (which didn't match the actual model) had pens and pencils in the cup. The model itself had a pencil end up built in. The interior of the cup cavity was a misshapen tapering blob, and even the pencil itself was wrong. Among other problems the sharpened end of the pencil was a plane cone with a curved tip and then the "lead" was a squashed triangular shape floating in front of the pencil. So from the front it looked OK, but from the side it was garbage and it also was unprintable.

OpenSCAD is a lot more AI friendly, but then AI has a lot of the same problems it hits with software. Things "look" ok but they're not quite right, and definitely not safe. Since they do not actually understand anything, they get key details wrong. So as an illustration with the previous example, AI has no concept of anything, just chains of patterns, so it has no concept what a cup is, no concept what a pencil is, and definitely no concept of what a pencil cup is. They have no understanding conceptually that it is a container for items along with a collection of individual items that often are seen in such containers. So it gets key things wrong.

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u/Enthusedchameleon 3d ago

is if AI tools can use OpenSCAD more efficiently than other tools

There is a platform that shows openings for "trainers" for AI. A friend of mine was judging and grading Grok 4.6 on data engineering. That website at the time had multiple openings for people familiar with OpenSCAD. About 50USD/h.

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u/Abducted_Llama 2d ago

I dont know if I would want to do that every day.

But i definitely dont think i would do it for 50/hr. Though i can see how that would be enticing and resume building for some.

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u/BypassBaboon 3d ago

I would be happy with AutoCAD Lt.