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Fornjot is an early-stage project to create a next-generation, code-first CAD application. Because the world needs another CAD program.
For an introduction of what the project aims to achieve, please check out the website.
Fornjot is supported by @webtrax-oz, @lthiery, @Yatekii, @martindederer, @hobofan, @ahdinosaur, @thawkins, @bollian, @nullstyle, @rozgo, @sucaba, @jessebraham, @Kethku, @sanxiyn, @seigel, @seanjensengrey, @jacobrosenthal, @MattOslin, @benwis, @happysalada, @jminer, @reivilibre, @jeevcat, @U007D, and my other awesome sponsors. Thank you!
Please consider supporting me too, to help make Fornjot sustainable long-term.
Fornjot is under active development, but still experimental. Efforts are currently focused on providing a stable set of basic CAD features.
If you are interested in Fornjot and are considering to use it, you should fully expect to run into limitation pretty much immediately. Unless you are willing to contribute to its development, it would be better to wait for a year or ten, to let it mature. For more information on current limitations and improvements that could be implemented in the near future, check out the open issues.
To learn about the project's longer-term direction, please refer to the roadmap.
Fornjot is both an application, as well as an ecosystem of components that make up this application, but can be used independently. All those components are located in the crates/ directory within the repository.
Here's an overview over all of the crates, with a short description of what they do:
fj-math: Math primitives used by the rest of the Fornjot ecosystem.fj-interop: Basic types that allow other crates to interoperate, without depending on each other.fj-kernel: CAD kernel of Fornjot. Defines geometric and topological primitives, and algorithms that operate on those primitives.fj-operations: CAD operations, built on top offj-kernel. Link between the kernel, and the API that users use to define models.fj-export: Exports Fornjot models to external data formats.fj-host: Loads Fornjot models and watches them for changes.fj-viewer: Displays Fornjot models.fj-window: Embedfj-viewerin a Winit-based window.fj-app: The Fornjot CAD application.fj: End-user API for defining Fornjot models.
Models are defined as Rust code. To ensure fast compile times, they are compiled separately, and loaded into the Fornjot application as a plug-in.
use fj::syntax::*;
#[fj::model]
pub fn model(
#[value(default = 1.0, min = inner * 1.01)] outer: f64,
#[value(default = 0.5, max = outer * 0.99)] inner: f64,
#[value(default = 1.0)] height: f64,
) -> fj::Shape {
let outer_edge = fj::Circle::from_radius(outer);
let inner_edge = fj::Circle::from_radius(inner);
let footprint = outer_edge.difference(&inner_edge);
let spacer = footprint.sweep([0., 0., height]);
spacer.into()
}This is the code for the spacer model.
At this point, Fornjot supports basic 2D shapes (sketches made from lines segments, circles, limited combinations between them), sweeping those 2D shapes along a straight path to create a 3D shape, and some very incomplete support for constructive solid geometry (CSG).
The short- to mid-term priority is to provide solid CSG support, more flexible sketches, and more flexible sweeps (along a circle or helix). Long-term, the plan is to keep adding more advanced CAD modeling features, to support even complex models and workflows.
As of this writing, Fornjot runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS. The project is primarily developed on Linux, so the other platforms might be subject to bugs. If you want to help out, regularly testing on Windows and macOS, and reporting bugs, is a good way to do so.
Short- to mid-term, the plan is to add support for the web platform, so Fornjot can run in browsers. Long-term, the plan is to additionally support the major mobile platforms.
Exporting models to both the 3D Manufacturing Format (3MF), which is used in 3D printing, and STL is supported.
Since Fornjot uses Rust as the language for defining models, a Rust toolchain is required to use Fornjot.
To install Fornjot itself, you have the following options:
- Download a binary from the latest release.
- Compile the latest release yourself:
cargo install fj-app - Compile a development version from this repository:
cd path/to/repo; cargo install --path crates/fj-app
While the Fornjot application is a graphical application that opens a window and displays a 3D view of your model, it can currently only be started from the command-line. The instructions below assume that you have the Fornjot application installed somewhere on your path, under the name fj-app.
Models are Rust libraries that depend on the fj library, which they use to define the geometry. Furthermore, they need to be built as a dynamic library. Just use the examples in the models/ directory as a template to define your own.
To view a model, run:
fj-app --model my-modelThis will compile and load the model in the my-model/ directory.
Rotate the model by pressing the left mouse button while moving the mouse. Move the model by pressing the right mouse button while moving the mouse. Zoom with the mouse wheel.
Toggle model rendering by pressing 1. Toggle mesh rendering by pressing 2. Toggle rendering of debug data by pressing 3.
To export a model to a file, run:
fj-app --model my-model --export my-model.3mfThe file type is chosen based on the file extension. Both 3MF and STL are supported.
Models can define parameters that can be overridden. This can be done using the --parameters argument:
fj-app --model my-model --parameters "width=3.0,height=5.0"If you are interested in Fornjot, please consider joining the community. We'd love to have you!
The following venues are best-suited for questions, feedback, or general discussions:
If you found a bug or have a specific feature request, please use issues on GitHub:
Feel free to check existing issues and add your voice there, if you find one that fits. But if you are unsure or don't have the time for that, don't let that stop you. We'd rather have duplicate issues than not hear about a bug at all.
If you are interested in helping out, just fork one of the GitHub repositories and submit a pull request:
If you don't know what to work on, check out the good first issues. To get an overview over current priorities, take a look at the open milestones.
If you need some more guidance, check out the contribution guide, or just ask! See the Community section above, for how to get in touch.
This project is open source, licensed under the terms of the Zero Clause BSD License (0BSD, for short). This basically means you can do anything with it, without any restrictions, but you can't hold the authors liable for problems.
See LICENSE.md for full details.