91–97 of 97 posts
Hey, I created CadHub. I'm really bullish on software driven CAD, myself and other CadHub volunteers talk regularly about a future in which Mechanical Engineering and design is very similar to software engineering. I'll be the first person it admit that some of the current CodeCAD tools aren't production ready, OpenSCAD for example I can't imagine being used by mechanical engineers. So the idea is mostly about unifyi…
Hey, I created CadHub. I'm really bullish on software driven CAD, myself and other CadHub volunteers talk regularly about a future in which Mechanical Engineering and design is very similar to software engineering. I'll be the first person it admit that some of the current CodeCAD tools aren't production ready, OpenSCAD for example I can't imagine being used by mechanical engineers. So the idea is mostly about unifyi…
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Howdy! Well we absolutely need more open source CAD tools. That said as a mechanical engineer for going on two decades now, I really get no value from this kind of mechanical design. I grew up on Solidworks and now use OnShape. That kind of physical modeling is very important. Being able to click on a face and sketch some geometry and then extrude it really feels like the right modality for me. I’d really love to see…
> I grew up on Solidworks and now use OnShape... I’d really love to see more investment in that kind of parametric visual CAD. Has You tried SolveSpace app? [0] https://solvespace.com [1] https://git.io/SolveSpace3x (latest nightly builds + various useful resources)
EDIT: I see you linked some tutorials so I will have to check those out!
I've been using CadQuery [1] a lot of late to develop custom parts for 3D printing, and while it's nice to be able to write plain Python and the abstractions are somewhat more intuitive than OpenSCAD, it's still kind of brittle and complex parts are hard work. There are things CAD-as-code excels at, but once you leave the happy path of simple primitives with a few holes and a bit of chamfer, I found things can get re…
I completely agree, but Fusion360 is still very usable for hobbyists in practice. It does store your files on the cloud, the software only works when it can phone the server, and Autodesk can change its conditions at any time. But for the moment, most hobbyists are happy with it. It's quality software, and free (as in beer). It's hard to compete with that. Most hobbyists care more about making their designs rather th…
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Unfortunately CadQuery (primarily its GUI) seems like its development has fizzled out, without getting it to the point of functionality on macOS. OpenSCAD, on the other hand, works quite reliably on Mac. Also, it's clunky, but I've had success by using Python to generate OpenSCAD code. The best application of this was an SVG to OpenSCAD path converter.
Doesn't https://github.com/CadQuery/CQ-editor work on MacOS? I don't really see how development has fizzed out. There have been quite a few commits the last couple of months.
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CAD and code absolutely do not, and should not mix. I tend to agree, having done both programming and mechanical design. Drawing by writing code is pounding a screw. The major CAD systems have some scripting capability, for when you need to generate a gear or a geodesic dome or something that needs procedural generation. They also have constraint solvers, so you can specify constraints and let the system find a solut…
I'm an embedded software engineer and into 3D printing useful/functional things. I've made a lot of cool complicated stuff with OpenSCAD. There's a lot of problems that are solved nicely in code. For example, I made a two stage 80:1 gear box for a force feedback steering wheel project, and I fully parameterized the gearbox geometry based on the tooth count, gear metric, and extrinsic mounting constraints. As a result…
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Howdy! Well we absolutely need more open source CAD tools. That said as a mechanical engineer for going on two decades now, I really get no value from this kind of mechanical design. I grew up on Solidworks and now use OnShape. That kind of physical modeling is very important. Being able to click on a face and sketch some geometry and then extrude it really feels like the right modality for me. I’d really love to see…
> Howdy! Well we absolutely need more open source CAD tools. Please, no. We need one (or two for competition) really good open source solid modeling CAD tools with parametric and other interfaces. We do not need a dozen competing tools with varying feature overlap that need to be meticulously vetted before committing to one. Not to mention wasted dev time as each tool implements similar features in different ways, wa…