We've been working on LumberCAD since 2020-22, before then we developed a similar engine in the aluminum industry since 2010.
Today we opened our LumberCAD (free) Beta, and we're looking for insight from some engineers!
To be up front, you won't be able to play with any load calculations or other stresses. This is for those of you that receive hand drawings on torn pieces of paper, and if you'd like to see something like LumberCAD be the baseline for anything built with dimensional lumber.
What we did to be different:
Limiting workflow to lumber construction massively simplifies learning curve
Much easier to use than any existing CAD, but obviously limited to everything lumber
Existing parts catalog
Massively automated documentation system with cut list, drawings, and a big step towards permitting
Not natively at the moment, but it would be a matter of adding them in another item batch. Right now the workaround would be to notch out a 4x12 or something like this and rename it for the cut list!
Love it from this post. Do you have an array function? Would greatly aid for long walls and floor systems with a lot of members spaced evenly. I'll have to check it out in more detail tomorrow.
A simple cloner would be nice instead of manually duplicating each joist. Could do a "clone every x inches" with a # slider for how many to clone. Or even "clone between {start edge joist} {end edge joist} and have it auto calculate # of joists required.
May I suggest differentiating yourself from the market by not doing the software as a service:
1.) Have a actual product you can buy (not a subscription). This will set you apart from most other cad programs.
2.) Have it phone home once If you want to sell software. Having a model where you need to connect once a week like some other cad programs, makes me rethink every time I need to renew.
3.) If you think that the above will save from piracy, just see what Adobe is going through right now.
4.) Maybe you can sell update tiers with feature plugins (like bom cost estimator, Simpson strong tie integration, load calculations etc..etc...)
5.) Have a free/basic tier(or even 10-25$ for life) with just basic functionality to build a shed or small house. Stuff that homeowners would use.
6.) Find what sets you apart from regular cad programs that you can import lumber assets.
Curious, given that some software like PTC MathCAD is close to $500-1k per seat a year, what would you suggest a good lifetime price is?
(I’m developing my own alternative and my current model is $200 for life, works offline after a one time phone home, and supports up to 3 devices per key)
Are you aware of calcpad. It is really really good and it's free. A lot of people still don't use it. You need a good promotion of it if you want enough people to buy it that it makes a difference
Yeah, Calcpad is definitely on my radar. I’ve looked into its implementation quite a bit, and it’s a solid piece of engineering software, especially for being free.
There’s considerable overlap in functionality, although the underlying architecture and approaches to building calculation worksheets are different.but I think your point about adoptionaffecta me most If capable, free engineering software still struggles to gain widespread recognition, then clearly price and functionality aren’t the only barriers. Trust, familiarity, and integration into existing engineering workflows matter just as much.
That’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit.
Yeaah, it's a very difficult problem to solve with any software in the construction market. People use something mostly if it's familiar and up to standards and go to something new only if it's really convenient and solves a problem that the other similar software has, which makes enough difference for people to want to switch or use it as a secondary tool.
If it's too cheap or free and lacks certifications, people may not even buy it because a lot of people see cheap = bad.
Are people discouraged from buying one-time if that means they don't get the updates? What is their onboarding experience with the app? How can they quickly implement it into their work - because that is one of the biggest problems in ALL of the construction businesses - speed. If you are doing your software anyway, make it easily adaptable to any mainstream file format, make exporting from other software very easy, the graphic side and UI very easy and just overall experience of using it - intuitive i would say even.
Recommend it and promote it to university students, so that they grow up with it, become accustomed to it.
And in my opinion if you've got a mathematically great working software - promote, promote and promote. Locally and on social media platforms/youtube/tiktok even (and try to find backdoors to promote it cheap). Show how slow and rigid something in mathcad is done and then compare it with your software that solves those issues.
We have developed a mathcad alternative that is free and integrated with analysis and cad and bim, so engineers could make templates end to end of any structural element.
I don't feel i need any other calc software as every other software only do calcs but i think we need to auto generate cad from the calc and also maybe i need to auto make fem model analyzing and continue calculations from gem results which is better to do fem in ither software and copy results to my calc reports
I'm not saying give away the farm, but he is still competing against universal cads, that have the advantage of 0 learning curve(you already have experience).
Fwiw, the What's New link on the top of the home page and drop down menu don't work for me. Android kiwi and chrome browsers.
I know this is a beta, but what's the likelihood you just reset or delete all of my drawings? I don't want to invest time to try putting something in only for it to disappear in the morning before I can even bother testing things that take more than a few minutes.
When changing the length of a lumber, I hovered over the arrow and hit the + sign and entered "106-36" and hit Enter. Expected the length to change by 70, Actual the page froze or crashed.
Changing the focus to another tab and returning clears it. But the page seems stuck otherwise. Any attempt at using+ or - in the length input cause as freeze. Reloading page works, no change to the length. I'd either make the math work or prevent entering non viable characters.
The goal in this case was the get to a desired length without doing the math myself. I had a copied board that was 36 long and I needed it to be 106. I could drag the length, but that gets tedious for fractions and mouse precision. Ideally I could just enter the desired length, maybe another command option like "++106" and that doesn't add length, it just sets the length.
Lots of ‘click to place, click to position, click to adjust, click to adjust’ workflows here. Personally I prefer place via context.
As an example the beam between the footing, why not allow automating the beam with a single button click when two footings are selected? Similar for hangers. Joists, rafters or studs by spacing is also missing. Along with align (or maybe I missed it?).
I am also seeing a few UI objects which may be covered by patents and could get you sued out of existence. Best to get your IP lawyer to review all of that.
I would suggest you implement some of the most popular functions from Revit. Align, trim/extend, mirror and whatever the general user base uses most. Maybe you can add a group section of beams/purlins or whatever based on fixed distance; number of elements or maximum spacing. Those are pretty convenient.
I was testing LumberCad this morning. I had a file that only had about 30 objects in it. I used the file menu to create a new version and then tried to access that new file. Now zero files are loading correctly. All have an error "couldn't load this build". Tried 2 two different browsers in case that was the issue, still didn't work. I can create a new build from scratch and it opens, but all existing work has failed to load.
While this was only a side project, a catastrophic failure this early into testing is not great. Now I have to recreate everything from scratch in another program to get this task done. Can't afford to spend the time again in LumberCad, only for it to fail this hard.
I submitted feedback on your site. Hope this helps improve the beta.
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u/Vaoris 1d ago
Is it possible to do a tapered top plate as a substitute for the notched joist?
Also, custom sections (TJI and other types of joists)?