Just a cherry on top? We’re bringing the entire orchard!
We have just made our humble beginnings. The response is great, and we are grateful for the industry folks who have been offering help!
In the last two decades, the software industry has been shaped based on collective perspectives. Innovation is a collective outcome. The flexibility to create your own applications is paramount, it gives you a choice. It gives you control, it gives you a sense of ownership.
Something needs to change, and we shall ask ourselves.
Why build Plugins when you can build Apps?
Imagine if Apple had told developers they must use iCloud for their app storage and required users to open a central “container app” before accessing any service. Think about the frustration this would cause, users would face constant obstacles, and developers would struggle under rigid limitations. Apple actually did attempt something similar, believing that retaining complete control over development would simplify everything. Instead, it led to significant setbacks. You can read more on this
Finally, Apple then decided to let developers build on top of their SDK kit and it became a win-win for everyone.
AEC software is no different, some CAD kernels have been developed since 8Os, and the principles have not changed, but the accessibility is abstract.
We AIM to change this with OpenGeometry Kernel
Building Trust
Adopting new tools is hard and it requires a lot of trust, and when it comes to Geometric Kernel, this might take years. The change won't happen overnight, we understand that.
To overcome this, we are building our own tools for starters. We want to demonstrate the capabilities of the Kernel which everyone can refer to and create their applications. We have already started working on these internal tools. We want to share details about one of them with you today.
We are calling it OpenPlans
OpenPlans
A Geometric Kernel involves numerous different and complex operations. But we wanted to start something simple, which we can use as our sandbox to learn, iterate, and develop. We intend to develop a full-fledged open-source tool to create Floorplans instantly and on the Fly. We will be sharing more details about OpenPlans as and when we develop, our current focus is to develop elements that will be used as building blocks to create industry-accepted floorplans.
We built two primitives - A Wall and A Door
These are the basic primitives, but we are confident that we can create an entire app using OpenGeometry Kernel and other frameworks.
What Next?
We have been constantly sharing our updates on LinkedIn. Everyone who reached out to us was kind and gave good suggestions. However, one thing was common - They said, "It's difficult to write a CAD Kernel."
We are still youngsters in the Graphics World, and when we wrote the first line of code, we didn't even think about the complexity. We just wanted to create something that we could play with. Over the last two months we have realised it's not hard. We don't see problems that way.
We rather feel there are two problems.
- Lack of Knowledge - In the wave of innovation, we forgot to make things accessible. We have felt there is a lack of knowledge sharing when it comes to Geometric Kernel. This was our motive to share as much as we could with the world.
- Time Constraint - This might not be an industry problem, but writing a complex program indeed requires a lot of time. We have a day job to pay bills and we are dedicating our evenings to this. We don't have a financial motive when writing the OpenGeometry Kernel, but that brings more freedom.
Despite the problem, we can't sit still. However slow, we will make progress. For the next few weeks, we plan to implement Boolean Operations.
Hello-World-AEC
Someone on LinkedIn suggested a name for the demo we had put, hence the name.
Do you want to try out the Hello-World-AEC demo?
Let us know how it goes - https://demos.opengeometry.io/hello-world-aec/
Next Milestone
We have broken down our roadmap to achieve POCs for what we want. We have kept our roadmap flexible, it isn't rigid and we drive it based on the insights we gain.
Our next milestone is to develop a simple boolean engine that can join two walls. Does it sound interesting? This can be an interesting topic for the next blog.
Let's keep this one short. Thank you for the support!