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Shapr3D: 3D Modeling software
Company blog · shapr3d.com/blogdesignhardware
Shapr3D: 3D Modeling software is the company blog at shapr3d.com, writing about design and hardware. Since 2016, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 22 times, most often “History of Parametric Technology Corporation”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
No feed foundVisit the blog
22mentions?
16HN people?
2016–2026first – last linked?
Too few sampled comments (18) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Shapr3D's site for its iPad, Mac and Windows CAD software, its history-of-CAD articles, and its pricing page. Most comments mention the product rather than judging the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 18 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Experience the world’s most intuitive 3D modeling software for iPadOS, iOS, Windows & macOS. Download now and start your first professional CAD project for free.
Most-linked posts?
- /6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-09-18
- History of Parametric Technology Corporation2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-05-21
What Hacker News says?
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is how the parts were modeled. I asked @BCiechanowski on Twitter and the response was "Modeled in Shapr3D [0], animated manually in JS". Another person asked about the gears, and he said "Gears are just generated programmatically, it made it very easy to tweak their shape as needed". Overall, a fascinating workflow. [0] https://www.shapr3d.com
Comment linking /
on “Mechanical Watch”Submitted History of CAD as a story · 160 points
HN discussionI did all my CAD work via https://www.shapr3d.com/ . It runs on multiple platforms, but I use it on my iPad Pro. There are many other options, such as OnShape, Fusion, FreeCad etc.. However most of them have their own quirks Onshape: It's public domain on Hobbyist plan, so anything I create has to be by default Public. The next plan they have is $1500 yearl Fusion: This is the most recommended one, however it's macO…
Comment linking /
on “I designed a Dieter Rams-inspired iPhone dock”Submitted Shapr3D Parametric Beta as a story · 3 points
HN discussionOnshape and Solidworks (and Shapr3D, and Nx amongst others) use the Parasolid kernel. Without Parasolid, Onshape wouldn't have happened so quickly. It also helped that it was founded by many of the core team behind Solidworks. Parasolid started being developed in 1988. [0] Creo uses the Granite kernel, which was developed by PTC, starting in 1985. [1] Onshape and Solidworks (and many others) also license the same 2D…
Comment linking /history-of-cad/parametric-technology-corporation
on “CADmium: A local-first CAD program built for the browser”Submitted History of Parametric Technology Corporation as a story · 1 points
HN discussionShapr3D on iOS is free or $240/year for the pro version. I've barely used it (I use Solidworks for work) but it does use the same Parasolid kernel as Solidworks, Onshape, NX and many other serious CAD packages. https://www.shapr3d.com/
Comment linking /
on “FreeCAD: A free and open source multiplatform 3D parametric modeler”All of their mechanical CAD? No- some of that is handled in Shapr ( https://www.shapr3d.com/ ). Given the state of the industry and the discussion in many sibling comments, it wouldn’t surprise me if this share is growing. A little birdie tells me they work closely with the Shapr team on certain feature developments in the app, and from my own personal experience I can tell you that I much prefer the Mac-native mode…
Comment linking /
on “Apple's Dimensional Drawings”Shapr3D | Budapest, Hungary | Full-Time | Onsite Shapr3D https://www.shapr3d.com/ is a super ambitious company, aiming to revolutionize the computer aided design (CAD) industry and to build a globally successful product. We are backed by top European investors including Point9 Capital (Revolut, Zendesk) and Creandum (Spotify). Shapr3D is a flagship app on iPad Pro, regularly getting featured by Apple. But what we’re…
Comment linking /jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2019)”There’s also Shapr3D on iOS: https://shapr3d.com
Comment linking /
on “OpenSCAD: Software for creating solid 3D CAD objects”Even in beta, how you present your work is as important or possibly more important than the "work" itself. (It's actually a significant part of the work.) I've been involved with beta programs for other CAD tools and constantly give feedback to the Onshape team for their design and development of their app. I've worked at major design firms (IDEO, Pentagram, Lunar, etc) and have an ID background. I'm very enthusiast…
Comment linking /
on “Plasticity Is CAD for Artists”For a further analysis of this letter (in the context of CAD) see: https://www.shapr3d.com/history-of-cad/introduction
Comment linking /history-of-cad/introduction
on “Autodesk's John Walker Explained HP and IBM in 1991 (2015)”2d geometric constraints solvers are usually based on BFGS algorithm ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shan... ). This is what we use in Shapr3D for example ( http://www.shapr3d.com )
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on “Solvespace – parametric 2d/3d CAD”The other books on hardware from this timeframe such as Tracy Kidder's _The Soul of a New Machine_ or Jerry Kaplan's _StartUp_ or Andy Hertzfeld's _Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made_ (available as: https://folklore.org/0-index.html ) are quite striking and forthright in their discussion of hardware limitations and the ingenuity needed to get things done. The book _CAD History…
Comment linking /history-of-cad/introduction
on “Project Xanadu: Even More Hindsight (2025)”I'd also recommend giving Shapr3D a try. Its an extremely nice up-and-coming CAD suite. Very little cloud integration as well (they only very recently added model syncing to your account). Their lineage is definitely as an iPad app, but its been ported with perfect fidelity to MacOS and Windows, and I think that touch-first small-screen lineage has forced them to produce a tool that's so quick and productive to just…
Comment linking /
on “On CAD”Intergraph[1] workstations based on the Fairchild Clipper CPU included a 80186 for booting into PC-DOS. At $30K in '80s dollars that might have made it the most expensive way to run DOS. But I think when booted into UNIX the 186 was used for I/O processing. [1] https://www.shapr3d.com/history-of-cad/intergraph
Comment linking /history-of-cad/intergraph
on “Non-PC compatible x86 computers (2007)”In what way does LibreCAD writing out .dxfs, or Solvespace or BRL-CAD having a human-readable file format option developed not suit your needs? That said, I believe this would be helped immensely by an overview of CAD --- fortunately, one was published a while back, and dragged back from 404-ness by one CAD vendor: https://www.shapr3d.com/history-of-cad/introduction a reading of that to understand the overall contex…
Comment linking /history-of-cad/introduction
on “Proposal: GUI-first, text-based mechanical CAD inspired by software engineering”I have a laptop with touchscreen, mostly forget about it until i by accident touch the screen, and then usually it does something irritating. The touchscreen is more of a problem then a benefit. The only devices that really benefit from a touchscreen are phones and tablets. And there for certain types of apps it may even be a better input device than keyboard and mouse. This could be one of those situations: https:/…
Comment linking /
on “Google says Android tablets are the future, starts staffing up new division”Check out these apps if you do buy an iPad: [1] Infinite Painter https://infinitestudio.art/painter.php [2] Procreate https://procreate.art/ [3] Notability https://notability.com/ [4] Pushover real-time notifications https://pushover.net/ [5] Shapr3D 3D-modelling https://www.shapr3d.com/
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on “Ask HN: Has the iPad Won the Tablet Wars?”My fav is still https://www.shapr3d.com/pricing
Comment linking /pricing
on “Pricing Tables with High Convert in 2022”related: "In Version 2.5, AutoLISP allowed access to the DWG database. AutoLISP was based on XLISP, a public domain version of LISP written by David Betz. Betz later complained that Autodesk had failed to acknowledge the source, which the company later did." ( https://www.shapr3d.com/history-of-cad/autodesk-and-autocad ) https://github.com/dbetz/xlisp
Comment linking /history-of-cad/autodesk-and-autocad
on “Show HN: AutoLISP interpreter in Rust/WASM – a CAD workflow invented 33 yrs ago”