Solvespace has the benefit of being a single download/executable.
It also has a constraint solver which has been used in a couple of projects: CADsketcher as you noted, and Dune 3D: https://github.com/dune3d/dune3d where the author noted:
>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.
It seems really interesting/promising, esp. the compleat history and editability (I'd love to see that history listed in a pane which could be opened/closed --- add a series of disclosure triangles which would allow hiding finished elements so that one could focus on the current task and it would be a dream come true for me --- if I can puzzle out the 3D stuff, so far I've crashed and burned on all the apps I've tried (BRL-CAD, FreeCAD, Solvespace, Alibre Atom...) --- the only thing I've been successful w/ is OpenSCAD and similar coding tools).
Because the web browser did what systems developers have failed at for at least 60 years: creating a platform that can host an application that just works on many different devices.
There is no serious comparison to the performance and richness offered by native applications. Famously (and wisely), Apple quickly reversed their decision on web apps for iOS devices.
That's long gone. Long long gone actually. Now browser is such a huge and capable platform that there's nothing comparable available anywhere.
Even XBox controller's drivers come baked into browser. Just check the number of APIs on MDN.
As for performance, that's already not anywhere into discussion. Check Google Docs. Everything single thing you are on screen is drawn using Canvas and it works just.... everywhere.
They make money getting their cut of ios app payments. They wouldn't be able to do that for web apps. So they've done their best slowing down adoption of pwa's to keep that revenue coming.
Because it means it'll work regardless of whether I have a Linux, Mac, Windows, ChromeOS, iPad, or just try to check some detail of my part on my phone.
When I design a part at home, need to make an adjustment at work, and then need to make it using whatever is available in the makerspace, not having to install something is a big win.
Manifold is a triangle mesh library. CAD should use NURBS surfaces and only triangulate them for rendering. I had looked at replacing the solvespace triangle mesh code with Manfold, but it's a lot of work and what we really need is to fix the NURBS bugs so we don't need to lean on the mesh code so much.
BTW the solvespace constraint solver is also used in the Assembly 3 workbench of FreeCAD ;-) It's really getting around these days.
Yeah, triangle mesh library and NURBS are very different, they do different things. Interesting to know that the solvespace folks wanted to try integrating manifold. Feel free to open an issue or discussion if needed, there were many changes as manifold was actively developed and gaining more users.
I am also interested in having a simple constraint solver for some kind of constructive geometry useful for CAD modeling, but not necessarily a full-fledged NURBS kernel. I think it can be interesting for text-based modeling, probably similar to some of the CadQuery APIs.
Solvespace has the benefit of being a single download/executable.
It also has a constraint solver which has been used in a couple of projects: CADsketcher as you noted, and Dune 3D: https://github.com/dune3d/dune3d where the author noted:
>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.
Any relation to: https://github.com/jay3sh/cadmium ?
Also, for CAD kernels, Manifold was not mentioned: https://github.com/elalish/manifold/wiki/Manifold-Library --- while I understand it to have many of the same disadvantages as OpenCASCADE, it does seem worth mentioning.
Interestingly the kernel was previously discussed here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35071317
It seems really interesting/promising, esp. the compleat history and editability (I'd love to see that history listed in a pane which could be opened/closed --- add a series of disclosure triangles which would allow hiding finished elements so that one could focus on the current task and it would be a dream come true for me --- if I can puzzle out the 3D stuff, so far I've crashed and burned on all the apps I've tried (BRL-CAD, FreeCAD, Solvespace, Alibre Atom...) --- the only thing I've been successful w/ is OpenSCAD and similar coding tools).