Q12
A constraint-based 2D drawing tool
Details
- External ID
- 47064580
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- Q12
- Website domain
- q12.app
- Launched
- Feb. 18, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 7
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.38207547169811323
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
Description
Q12 is a new web-based 2D parametric drawing tool built specifically for geometric problem solving, for playing interactive "what if" games with drawings, and for the design and optimization of mechanisms.Q12 has the usual set of drawing constraints found in other CAD tools (e.g. "lines are parallel") but also supports inequality constraints, area constraints, and arbitrary expressions between geometric quantities. We built Q12 to solve problems like those below, after finding that existing CAD systems couldn't handle them well:* Given dimensions on a surveyor's map, figure out if the stated land areas are correct. If there's not enough information, show the extra measurements that are needed to pin things down. * In a backyard design project, the volume of a swimming pool must be more than 20,000 gallons but its perimeter paving must be under 400 square feet. Drag the pool shape around to quickly explore the possibilities within these constraints. * A 5-bar mechanism to clamp a workpiece must not push it sideways when contact is made. Animate the motion to get an intuitive feel for how design changes affect its behavior. Optimize to determine the best part dimensions.This is the first public release - still early, but already useful. More features will come, including 3D support at some point. Suggestions big and small are of course welcome.-Russ
Enrichment
- Theme
- 3d modeling and graphics engines
- Vertical
- —
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Prosumer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Commercial product
- Normalized one-liner
- constraint-based 2d drawing tool
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
No Developing a 2D parametric CAD sketcher requires building a robust geometric constraint solver (e.g., using non-linear least squares like Levenberg-Marquardt), which is mathematically complex and well beyond LLM code generation.
What it would actually take: The core architecture requires an interactive WebGL/Canvas renderer paired with a robust 2D geometric constraint solving engine (similar to PlanarGCS or SolveSpace) implemented in C++, Rust (via Wasm), or optimized JavaScript. The solver must formulate systems of non-linear algebraic equations for co-linearity, tangency, distances, and angles, solving them iteratively in real-time under user drag events with proper degrees-of-freedom tracking. Requires specialized expertise in computational geometry, numerical optimization algorithms, and CAD engine design.
Discussion
1 comment analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Figma
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 235 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #123 of 236 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 110 days after the earliest competitor.
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Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.