The core of any parametric CAD program is its geometric constraint solver.
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In SolveSpace, constraints are represented as equations in a symbolic algebra system. In general, these equations are solved numerically, by a modified Newton's method.
symbolic methods have been applied to this type of constraint solving (see Reference 20 on the Wikipedia link).
And your Zen "beginner mind" question got me to thinking, maybe I could use Prolog itself in my CAD system to directly make 3D shapes, since Prolog has been written in Lisp. Although Prolog does have a number of limitations:
Comments
This is, in spirit, what Solvespace does--although like the other reply here says with extruded 2D.
From https://solvespace.com/tech.pl
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and from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_constraint_solving#M...
And your Zen "beginner mind" question got me to thinking, maybe I could use Prolog itself in my CAD system to directly make 3D shapes, since Prolog has been written in Lisp. Although Prolog does have a number of limitations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolog#Limitations