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Show HN: Customizable Woodworking Plans with Three.js (otterplans.com)
10 points by Placoplatr on Sept 27, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments
This is the first time I manage to publish a side project in 12 years of web development (achievement unlocked!). I’ll be happy to read your thoughts about it. I’m interested in all types of feedback, and particularly I’d like to know if you’re aware of similar projects, as I haven’t found any.

This is about helping makers build things, wooden things for now, when they don’t want to invest time to use or learn CAD softwares.

I think the value will be tied to the size of the catalog, for now there is only two examples.

Stack wise this is React, React-three-fiber and Nuxt.js. Three.js may not be well adapted for CAD-like usecases but I wanted to quickly advance toward the MVP stage. I’m interested in knowing if there is other more relevant solutions you would think of (WebAssembly based options looked like premature optimization that may in fact not be that much more performant, and the WebGPU ecosystem seems too young).




This is very impressive! I like how the 3D model has a “view cube” to show the orientation, and that it updates in real-time as parameters are changed

They call these types of programs [1] “configurators” and they’re pretty fun to play with, great for clients to see what they want, especially with workshop drawings as output!

It also reminds me a little bit of [2] Matthias Wandel‘s “wooden gear generator”, which I think has been somewhat profitable.

Maybe it would be good to highlight the parts of the model that are changing with the parameters. I know it shows the dimension that’s changing, but it would be even clearer to highlight the model itself I think

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Configurator

[2] https://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html


This has potential!

Also I encourage you to apply your talents to the mechanical engineering space (custom on-demand parts). Many companies need exactly this UI for their products, but don't have the engineering team to do it.


It looks nice! I love the customization element, and the reasonable limits on each control.

The mobile UX is probably a little cramped with buttons hard to hit with confidence




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