So development on #SecSavr [gd0036] has, once again, been stalled while I look around to see if there are options outside of Fusion 360.

Initial Search

My initial search lead me to https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Node_editors, where I looked though each of them to see current statuses. 

The developer(s?) of the most recent node-based workflow in Freecad are wondering if they should switch from PyFlow as it's no longer maintained. Another project to bring PyFlow to FreeCAD is this: https://github.com/microelly2/NodeEditor. A currently maintained node project for Python is Ryven.

Sverchok looks like it's mainly for Blender. Modelica seems to be for simulation.

I'm slowly getting through the forum threads for DynFreeCAD and Pure-Data, but Pure-Data is looking promising so far.

Nodi

Tabbed back from the FreeCAD path to Google again to continue the search. Searched "node based cad github" and that's when I discovered https://github.com/Nodi3d/nodi.

It's got a peaceful looking interface and a 3D viewer that doesn't need a key held down to zoom, pan and rotate. 

Examples are provided and each node also has a link to discover more. 

Some things I thought when using the software:

• Being able to view compute time is useful.
• While I like that shadows don't go pure black when the angle from the light source is almost 90 degrees, pure white on the top face isn't ideal either.
• Some kind of "Pause Compute" and "Compute to here" feature should exist for changing parameters or trying to figure out what does what in a model.
• As expected, all the nodes and wires look like a mess
  • I'm thinking of having a wireless wire feature, as well as an auto align for node blocks.
• Being able to use this file as a component node for other files would be a desired feature.
  • In enSketchen, I'm thinking of an "expose" node that connects the inputs or outputs of the node tree to its enclosed node, like an API. For example, an "Input Expose" for "width" in the file "box" would show an input node dot with "width" for the node corresponding to the file "box" when used in another file. This will allow parameters to be fed through to different files, as well as make more library friendly files like bolts.

This is still very early research though. I'm currently reading the nodi docs.

[Published 16:39]