Parametric generative open source python cad app.

May 30, 2015 1:21 PM

"Antimony is a computer-aided design (CAD) tool from a parallel universe in which CAD software evolved from Lisp machines rather than drafting tables."
Or: an opensource grasshopper3d-ish thing written mostly in python.
via hackaday
posted by signal (11 comments total)

Parallel what? AutoLISP was the first (and still prominent customization language of AutoCAD since the mid 1980's. You can't write code for AutoCAD without seeing the LISP structure behaviors.
posted by nickggully at 1:43 PM on May 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

I always wanted a Symbolics system with the S-Package 3-D graphics software. But, you know like most people I went the path of least resistance: Silicon Graphics.
posted by cleroy at 2:43 PM on May 30, 2015

The narration sounds similar to a certain original Star Trek cast member. It might truly be from out of this world!
posted by the giant pill at 2:44 PM on May 30, 2015

Put together a few funnels for a piece of lab equipment last year using output from OpenSCAD, which I guess is the C-like versus LISP/synthesizer equivalent of this.
posted by monocyte at 3:09 PM on May 30, 2015

I always wanted a Symbolics yt system with the S-Package 3-D graphics software. But, you know like most people I went the path of least resistance: Silicon Graphics yt


Have you seen the Symbolics Space Cadet keyboard? It's flat out insane. It's not only set up for Common Lisp, it's got the full set of Iverson symbols for programming APL, too! My brain breaks every time I look at it, in pleasant ways.

I mean, sure, the SGI Bigfoot keyboard is pretty, but it is sadly lacking ambidextrous "Super" "Meta" and "Hyper" keys, and it most assuredly does not have a "Greek" key, nevermind two!

I want to imagine a modern LISP/APL/Smalltalk REPL-integrated IDE development workstation environment where every one of those keys makes intuitive sense. Also, you need the giant tablet from the video to sketch how objects interact.

Python can't come until it ditches leading and trailing double-underscores as valid syntax and replaces them with the far more sensible ∇ (meta-g).
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:03 PM on May 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

This looks promising. I hate having to reboot into windows all the time just to use Solidworks. I'm a little worried that this is more programmer friendly than designer friendly, but that could just be my inertia. Solidworks et all have two decades of refinement behind them that makes it extra easy to get shit done. OTOH, it would be great not to have to pay thousands of dollars a seat.

(Of note, the fact that this is parametric is a big deal. Unlike the AutoCAD clones or open scad, you can actually design first (start with your constraints), and dimension later. That's how the pros do it).
posted by Popular Ethics at 5:40 PM on May 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Parallel what? AutoLISP was the first

He might be talking about the UI?
posted by fivebells at 5:55 PM on May 30, 2015

The ICAD system, written in the 1980's for Symbolics Lisp machines and later ported to Common Lisp, was a fully-functional parametric design system (without, alas, an integrated solid modeler). It was used on a number of large commercial projects, including the Boeing 777 airframe, turbine blades for GE and P&W jet engines, and components for Jaguar and Lotus automobiles.
posted by mr vino at 7:17 PM on May 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

ICAD may have been used to design Jaguar components, mr vino, but the parts themselves seem to be made by hand from a half-remembered photocopied dot-matrix printout …
posted by scruss at 4:43 AM on May 31, 2015

The graph engine scales up to complex multi-part assembles.

That has not been my experience with any of the LabView-esque graphical box tools (previously). They don't seem to scale beyond the toy demos that makes them look cool. Version tracking, merging, etc are not easily done with that sort of thing and deciphering what connects to where is very difficult as the graph approaches the K-complete mess that many projects turn into.

Shapes are represented with a prefix string syntax that's easy to parse but a bit cryptic to decipher. Here's the definition for the circle shape used above ... The exact mapping from prefix strings to infix functions is left as an exercise for the reader:

def circle(x0, y0, r):
    return Shape(
            '-r+q-Xf%gq-Yf%gf%g' % (x0, y0, r), # math string
            x0 - r, y0 - r, x0 + r, y0 + r)     # bounds

"A bit cryptic to decipher" is putting that mildly.
posted by autopilot at 8:51 AM on May 31, 2015

it's got the full set of Iverson symbols for programming APL,

Sigh. For some people it's madeleines, for others, it's discrete inner and outer product operators.
posted by bonehead at 8:00 AM on June 1, 2015