3 HN users recommended this explainer2 months2023–2025score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Cited in CAD threads as a rare plain-spoken comparison of commercial geometry kernels and their limitations.
The Plasticity creator explains what a geometry kernel is and compares commercial options C3D, ACIS, and Parasolid, describing his months of research and why he chose as he did.
“Mentions an interesting video[2] going through the commercial geometry kernel options and their resp. limitations” (HN, 2023)
Nick Kallen has been working on an BREP based CAD tool with the sort of ease of modeling that things like Blender has. Originally it was based on C3D, but he switched halfway through to Parasolid.[0] It’s amazing the amount of features he has built considering it’s a one person project. It’s worth going through his progress report videos.[1] [0] [this video] [1] [link]
Plasticity author explains switching from C3D to Parasolid kernel.
See also this thread[1] from yesterday which has some interesting comments on the limitations projects based on the OpenCascade kernel face. Mentions an interesting video[2] going through the commercial geometry kernel options and their resp. limitations from the author of [3]. [1] [link] [2] [this video] [3] [link]
Compares commercial geometry kernels and their limitations.
The creator of this app, Nick Kallen, has a nice YouTube channel where he talks about some of the behind-the-scenes work on the project. I think his video comparing geometry kernels [0] was posted to HN a while back, but it's worth a watch if you're curious! [0]: [this video]
The other "decent" commercial one that can be licensed is C3D (ASCON/АСКОН uses a CAD kernel based on it in КОМПАС 3D) but it is Russian and thus currently "behind sanctions". Here is a bit on it from the author of Plasticity: [this video] it initially was based on C3D.
Background on the C3D kernel from Plasticity's author.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
4 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes