ABCCAD Is Voxels Meets LEGO In AR

We get it, CAD software can be daunting to learn. Somehow [Boaztheostrich] found it so daunting he procrastinated his way into a AR voxel-based CAD app he calls “ABCCAD”, written in Godot for the Meta Quest 3.

The app is simplicity itself: pressing A or X on the controller spawns a cube, which you can place wherever you like in virtual space by moving the controller in real space. The trigger then saves the cube position. Grabbing a cube uses the controller’s grab buttons. You can even change colors (with B or Y), but like in OpenSCAD it appears that’s not actually going to have any effect on the exported STL. Check it out in action in the demo video embedded below.

As far as CAD applications go, this is as simplistic as it gets, but there’s a certain charm to its simplicity. It’s almost like virtual LEGO. Besides, TinkerCAD wasn’t much more complicated when it started out, and look at it now.

Sure, one could say if [Boaz] wanted to do CAD he’d have been better off putting the time into learning good old OpenSCAD or FreeCAD (which can now get you SolidWorks certs, apparently), but this is a fun little app that let him stretch his chops in Godot, another great open-source tool. ABCCAD is, itself, open-source under an MIT license.

We seem to have a paucity of posts under the Godot tag, so if you’ve got a hack that uses the open-source game engine, please send us a tip.

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Man using a table saw with a VR headset on

Chop, Chop, Chop: Trying Out VR For Woodworking

Virtual Reality in woodworking sounds like a recipe for disaster—or at least a few missing fingers. But [The Swedish Maker] decided to put this concept to the test, diving into a full woodworking project while wearing a Meta Quest 3. You can check out the full experiment here, but let’s break down the highs, lows, and slightly terrifying moments of this unconventional build.

The plan: complete a full furniture build while using the VR headset for everything—from sketching ideas to cutting plywood. The Meta Quest 3’s passthrough mode provided a semi-transparent AR view, allowing [The Swedish Maker] to see real-world tools while overlaying digital plans. Sounds futuristic, right? Well, the reality was more like a VR fever dream. Depth perception was off, measuring was a struggle, and working through a screen-delayed headset was nauseating at best. Yet, despite the warped visuals, the experiment uncovered some surprising advantages—like the ability to overlay PDFs in real-time without constantly running back to a computer.

So is VR useful to the future of woodworking? If you’re a woodworking novice, you might steer clear from VR and read up on the basics first. For the more seasoned: maybe, when headsets evolve beyond their current limitations. For now, it’s a hilarious, slightly terrifying experiment that might just inspire the next wave of augmented reality workshops. If you’re more into electronics, we did cover the possibilities with AR some time ago. We’re curious to know your thoughts on this development in the comments!

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