Simplifying CAD visualization: How I built Viz-CADfrom the ground up without a budget
1. Who Am I?
My name is Ferhat, and I studied Mechatronics Engineering in Turkey. Throughout my studies, I had the chance to work in national and international competitions as part of a student team. My role was mechanical design—a role that gave me deep technical experience but also exposed me to one of the most frustrating challenges engineers often face.
During those competitions, it wasn’t enough to just design CAD models. We also had to report our work, present it to judges, and support the marketing team with visuals. That meant mechanical designers like me spent hours creating rendered visuals of CAD models just to communicate ideas.
It became a real burden.
2. The Problem With CAD Visualization
If you’ve ever worked with CAD tools, you know the pain:
- Built-in CAD viewers were too basic. They didn’t allow proper customization (background colors, lighting, or polished visuals).
- Professional rendering tools existed, but they were expensive, complex, and often locked behind restrictive licenses.
- As students, we didn’t have the resources to use these professional tools effectively.
The result: CAD designers were stuck doing repetitive rendering tasks, eating up time that could have been spent on actual design and problem-solving.
3. The Birth of Viz-CAD
After those competitions, I knew this challenge wasn’t unique to me—it was a problem that thousands of engineers and students faced. So I decided to build a solution.
At first, I started small: using Python and QT algorithms to experiment on my own computer. It was fun, but I quickly ran into a limitation: I couldn’t bring my solution to the web.
I didn’t know how to build web applications.
That’s when I asked friends for help. They introduced me to React and Tailwind (using shadcn components). With their help, I built my first landing page.
Soon after, I discovered Vercel’s AI tool (V0), which made designing UI much easier. By combining that with React’s documentation and a lot of trial and error, I started building a real web application.
4. Learning by Doing
Here’s what my journey looked like step by step:
- Built my first landing page with React.
- Used Vercel AI (V0) to speed up design tasks.
- Shared the early version with close engineering friends → gathered feedback constantly.
- Iterated quickly and added improvements.
- Bought a domain for \$11, and used Cloudflare for free deployment.
- Added simple pages like Contact and FAQ.
- Discovered the power of SEO and optimized my site.
- Added multilingual support using i18n → making Viz-CAD accessible to more users globally.
All of this was done while I was still learning web development from scratch. I had never built a web project before this. But step by step, I turned my idea into a functional SaaS application.
5. Where Viz-CAD Stands Today
Fast forward to today:
- Viz-CAD is live and growing organically.
- We’re gaining about 25–40 new users every week.
- In just three weeks, we’ve already passed 120 users.
- Best of all: Viz-CAD is freemium, which means anyone can try it immediately without barriers.
👉 You can check it out here: viz-cad.com
6. What’s Next for Viz-CAD
- Targeted ads to grow our user base beyond organic SEO.
- AI-powered part generation for engineers.
- CAD converters to simplify workflow.
- Embed features that allow users to share CAD scenes on other websites.
7. Lessons Learned Along the Way
- Start with your own pain point.
- Don’t wait until you know everything.
- Ask for help.
- Ship early, get feedback.
- Keep costs low.
8. Closing Thoughts
Viz-CAD is still early, but it’s already proving valuable to engineers around the world.
👉 Try it for free: viz-cad.com
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