Message Thread:
Cabinetry software and career advice
4/9/23
Website: https://ericb-portfolio.netlify.app
I'm thinking of writing a cabinet design program and I'm looking for some advice. Here's a basic mockup: https://cabinet-overview.netlify.app
I have written software for a few cabinet shops and also made www.cabinetfree.com.
With this program/website I was thinking of maybe making some side cash with it. Maybe some payed premium features.
My day job is running a CNC for a shop with 15-20 employees. I've been in cabinetry for close to 15 years. I'm not so good with the business stuff (I usually give work away for free).
What do you think I should do? And if I make it what features should it have?
Eric
https://cabinet-overview.netlify.app
4/10/23 #3: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
This is a massive undertaking to do well.
I would suggest you go to work as a programmer for one of the major cabinet software companies first. See if you like it, then take it from there.
4/11/23 #4: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
You seem to know what you are doing and have the experience to match. The idea would be to compare your app/program with others on the market and streamline or improve their functions. Plus, I suggest offering multiple package options or unlocking features to make money. It would be worth having your program tested by people within the business or doing market research to test what needs to be changed or what features people suggest including.
4/12/23 #5: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Hi Eric,
Thank you for posting again. I sent you my phone number on your site.
I like that you get using browsers, cloud based, so os doesn't matter. JavaScript? Typescript? JSON? OpenGL, wrappers, three.js, AI? :)
This thing with making a business can be done. You just need a little help there.
Some of the things that really matter are the good empowerment of the people using the tech, interoperability, promoting collaboration and innovation, removing proprietary limitations, addressing trade specific needs, and easy customisation by the person using it through simplicity in a well structured easy to understand environment.
Please try to understand that no matter what you develop, if there really is something much, much better or there will be, then you are fighting an up hill battle now and/or later, unless you use it just like you are using other API's.
I can tell you that the deepest problem has already been solved for much of that. Busy work, with creativity remains.
Give me buzz. I look forward to talking with you.
4/14/23 #6: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Thank you all for taking the time to offer your advice!
@Quicktrim
I have thought about that; working for a software company. But it seems like it might have some downsides. Like it might not allow for creativity. Of course it would have a number of up sides too. Like the learning opportunities.
@Chippy1987
The one problem that I'd like to have it solve is to make it as easy as possible to start using. I've tried a number of cabinetry design programs out there and the learning curve has been the biggest problem.
I think you're right about paying to unlock features.
Would having access to all premium feature be enough incentive to be a beta tester?
@David Wishengrad
I can't seem to see your message with your number in it. Maybe the spam filter was a bit to aggressive.
Ya, it's only been in the last few years that I've been using web tech and I've found it to be very advantages. My only complaint is I have to spent a lot of time on the user interface.
I think by basing it on web tech I would have a small advantage to start with.
A couple parts of this project would be a bit tricky:
A half decent panel optimizer and GCode generation.
Also a 3D custom cabinet designer.
Eric
4/14/23 #7: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Eric,
I sent on your blog, so the spam filer should be on your end. Please take a look and let me know. I just sent it in message through here too
Thank you,
5/1/23 #8: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Figure out what your market is. I have been using Microvellum for the past 15 years, is it perfect? NO. Does it have a large learning curve? YES. But I can make it do almost anything. I would not even give a web based application more than a glance maybe that's just me but everyone I have looked at have very little to offer. If all you are wanting to do is offer cutlist & reports that feild is pretty full and anyone witl a little excel knowledge can or should make their own. Stick with something that is Autocad based and get a team together as it is too large of a project for one person.
5/2/23 #9: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Eric,
Go to Y Combinator https://www.ycombinator.com/ and go to their startup school, they have free training podcast for startups. It's geared toward the tech industry but I think the information is the best on the internet for those who are thinking about starting a company. They are the leading venture capital firm in the world with the most successful startups in the world so I think they know sometime about helping people start a business.
https://www.ycombinator.com/
5/3/23 #10: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
@Brian Heaton I hope to market to small shops. Maybe the free features would be enough for those just starting out but having enough premium features to grow without having to switch to another program. I think you're right about the web-based solutions. I know they can work but I personal like to have an application on my computer. And keeping all the client/project info local is good for piece of mind.
I think I will be using web tech though. It has so much to offer. At this point it will likely be build as an application with Tauri and use Threejs for the 3D/2D end. With Tauri being build with Rust the heavy stuff like nesting could be done in Rust instead of Javascript.
For now it would probably just be me working on it. Mostly because I enjoy programming.
@Robert Thanks for the tip! I just signed up to their startup school.
5/4/23 #11: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Eric,
You might also want to check out Blender, a very powerful free open-source design software. You can create custom add-ons in Python and sell it to a community of 6 million who have downloaded it. Also check out Andrew Peel's Blender addon Home Builder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzdL8Wks45A&t=33s he a one-man show who is creating a Blender addon in Phyton for the cabinet industry.
View higher quality, full size image (1596 X 828)
Blender Home Builder
5/13/23 #12: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Robert,
That's and amazing project that Andrew is working on! I like that it can run on Mac, Linux and Windows.
I think I've got the tech working that I'll be using to build my software. And I've figured roughly about how long it will take to make a 'useable' product. I think I'll have to put in an average of 2 hours a day for about a full year.
Let me know what you think about that. If it's a good use of my time, or if I should be doing/building something else.
As far as the tech goes I'll be using Tauri to package it as an application, Svelte for the front end framework and threejs for the 3D.
I have the dev/build stuff all set up and working. Here's a preview:
https://cabinetry2023-demo.netlify.app
I plan to have it work as a website and downloadable application.
As a website it will use localstorage and indexedDB to store the projects and settings locally.
As an app it will use the file system.
Using something like this where the two diverge:
if (window.__TAURI__) {
const { message } = window.__TAURI__.dialog;
message("Tauri App");
}
else {
alert("Website");
}
https://cabinetry2023-demo.netlify.app
5/15/23 #13: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Eric,
It sounds like you have a plan.
Have you watched any of the YC video? They have a bunch of great videos on MVP development.
I've some experiments with threejs and sketchfabs platform, I'm just not code tech savvy enough to implement anything advanced. I'm more on the product design side of things. https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/bookcase-rev08-1-0428cde057184280a37dac1d8303eb86 here is an experiment of a piece designed.
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/bookcase-rev08-1-0428cde057184280a37dac1d8303eb86
5/29/23 #14: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
That's some amazing work Robert! How long would that have taken you to design?
I've only watched a few of their videos so far. I'll look for the MVP videos next.
Indiehacker is a nice resource as well. They have a podcast that I'll listen to on occasion.
6/28/23 #15: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
cabinet vision v9 is the best thing we have ever used,...i had a terrible experience with the other versions (primarily, the support , thank go this website is here)
We make furniture, radius desks, commercial cabinets. everything is ADA AWI spec,
8/15/23 #16: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
You should capitalize on your extensive experience in the cabinetry industry to develop a user-friendly cabinet design program.
10/5/23 #17: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Website: http://chaidan.net
My suggestions:
1. I don't sugguest developing web-based(or B/S) cabinet design software. It's valueable, but too much work load for single engineer or small company. The "work" here not only include developing, but also include marketing, changing user habits, ets.
2. I think developing a extension(plugin) based on Sketchup/Blender(#11 suggested) is a better choice for single developer, such as you and me. I'm developing a Sketchup extension ( http://chaidan.net/English/ ), which can export sketchup cabinet model to CAM software. This already cost me 2 years full time work.
Anyway, these are my personal advices, maybe I'm wrong. Please ignore these when your company goes to Nasdaq :)
10/5/23 #18: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Sorry, these should be on top of the previous post, but I missed:
--------------------------
Hi, Eric
I haven't visited this forum for a long time, so this reply maybe outdated. But I still want to say something, becase I'm doing the same thing, in China.
My suggestions:
........
10/5/23 #19: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Hi Bai,
I fixed the code for the Sketchup cut list program years ago for the guys that threw their hands up in the air and outsourced their coding.
They got someone that knew their coding, but he then chose to sort the cutlist incorrectly and completely unneeded, which destroyed the most practical functionality of it.
One cannot make this stuff up.
Sketchup is built on the code of a first person shooter video game that stamps all created objects with a matrix that is always updated when it is transformed and translated from the get go Simply transforming any Sketchup object (multiplying the current retrived matrix by itself and overwriting the database with the new numbers) will orient in the correct direction to get a clean boundingbox.
I had to add that stuff to acad with the xdata dxf codes. It's the only way I know of to get around the limits of double point precision to get decent accuracy in the dimensions of the objects regardless of rotation and symmetry.
With that said, I am just trying to point out that people who understand the real needs of others and can code are far and few between, and when they do, many are employed by companies making proprietary software that are continuously stifling innovation and productivity to make more money for themselves and have a continuous revenue stream for work that is old and outdated and not really thought though from the get go. JavaScript is good idea. It allows anyone with a modern browser to run the program.
Money can be made writing plugins, but the proprietary nature of the underlying cad platform means that as soon as someone releases a JavaScript app that is open and using JSON in a simplic fashion those cad platforms will then generally be obsolete tech just like vcrs and cassettes, cd's, and crt's.
Plugin's don't take as long to write, but their dependency on their core cad platform will likely limit their lifetime, returning a loss of the value of the time put in to creating them.
Eric has some very good ideas and knowledge. I don't want to see him waste that fixing outdated tech with workaround plugins as the endgame. In-between is fine. Let's all not lose sight of the goal though.
Take care
10/5/23 #20: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
P.S. Take a look at Deepnet.io
That is an open source material optimizer. Free as im free speech. Free as im free beer.
It's a port of the open source boost C++ library of one Hermann Minkowski's algorithms.
It clearly blows away every other material optimizers costing in the thousands for speed and accuracy.
There are many other ports of it.
meanwhile, it is completely ignored by the people making the cad platforms and is fairly easily deployed into existing code bases because they are not thinking about letting anyone know what is really available. One setting their future on depending on other cad platforms for income are locking themselves into being controlled by the people who make those platforms, and will be promoting them to control others and mislead others about what is really available to them and others and other completely vaild and working options.
It's terrible when someone spends all they have, thousands, to fix something that never gets fixed, only to find later that it was only a 35 dollar part.
It's legal to sell people proprietary software and take advantage of them. We should always be leaning away from doing that.
10/5/23 #21: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
Hi, David
First, I'm very happy that I can meet someone that doing similiar software product!
You know, woodworking software is a small market segmentation in all IT industry. It's really difficult to find someone who can talk with :)
So, based on friendly mood, I want to explain a little more:
-----------------------
1. I don't suggest web-based software, because there are already two big companies in China, have did it.
1.1 https://www.kujiale.com/
1.2 https://www.3vjia.com/ (https://www.aihouse.com/ in English)
Each of these two companies, have 300+ employees, and both have worked in this industry for 5+ years.
They spend huge resources not only on developing, but also on marketing. Because industry software takes much longer time for industry users to accept it, than common end user application.
So I don't think individual developer can afford this.
-----------------------
2. Yes, plugin is controlled by it's mother CAD platform, so maybe its lifetime is not so long. But:
2.1 plugin is a reasonable compromise between cost and value. Even plugin's lifetime is not long as standalone app or B/S site, but it's long enough to start business.
2.2 Sketchup/Blender take their plugins as a very important part of their ecology. So they don't easily overturn their plugin community, which would be a disaster for themselves.
-----------------------
3. I think both technical and business point of view are necessary to evaluate a software startup.
For https://deepnest.io/, I've heard of it, but I found it hasn't been updated for 5 years when i visited its github, I lost my interest.
So technically, maybe it's great. But businessly, maybe not.
Yes, something looks unreasonable from technique point of view. I agree with you because I'm a developer as well. But looks reasonable from business point of view, because we are human.
10/5/23 #22: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
I hear you and we all have to make a living.
Is the source code for those programs completely open, are they extremely easy to use, are they free and make money on providing another optional service that they manage and pay for?
You have to get real. Any software coming from China that is closed or questionable in code is never going to fit everyone. If it really is just about making money, then it seems to me that investing in the US dollar is a sure thing because if it doesn't just keep going up there won't be a world left where money or gold, etc., will matter. It's just an educated guess based on how seriously people in the USA take their freedoms. If you have something good to do over there and do well, they will just steal it from you later anyway.
10/8/23 #23: Cabinetry software and career advic ...
p.s. just because a software can utilize the web does mean it must be used that way. Ideally not. It's a feature that many can utilize and it should be there if they want it.
When it's not required for use and also deployed for those that must not be on the web have the choice to not use those features, then it seems reasonable.
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