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Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

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Re: Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

#22
post #10
post #4

I am one of the creators of Cuttle. It stems from my research building direct manipulation + programming environments like http://recursivedrawing.com/ and http://aprt.us/ From a programmer's perspective, you can think of Cuttle as a direct manipulation vector editor (like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator) that can be driven with parameters and JS code where you need it. Unlike my previous research projects, this is a c…

It would be neat to have STL and STEP output for 3D printers.

there's openscad

Re: Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

#23
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mainly curious whether the concepts in Cuttle could be exposed as plugins in Inkscape, or as a standalone application written in Qt-Python.

A Cuttle project is — behind the scenes — a program. Each “component” is a function. “Modifiers” are functions that take input geometry (and parameters) and use JS code to create arbitrary output geometry. All of this code can be live edited. At the same time you can do arbitrary “drawing” with a bezier pen tool and move/transform shapes. In this case you are essentially using the canvas drag-and-drop to manipulate l…

Very cool work.

FWIW the aparatus site says

> Apparatus is under active development. Discuss how Apparatus should evolve on the Apparatus Google Group.

Which seems like it's no longer accurate. Has it moved to a different repo?

Re: Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

#24
I got excited when I read "parametric"… thinking it would be akin to what Autocad Inventor had 20+ years ago (setting angles between lines, setting lines to be parallel etc.) since I was recently looking for a simple CAD tool that could do that. Alas.

Re: Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

#25

I got excited when I read "parametric"… thinking it would be akin to what Autocad Inventor had 20+ years ago (setting angles between lines, setting lines to be parallel etc.) since I was recently looking for a simple CAD tool that could do that. Alas.

Check out SolveSpace! It might be just what you want, don't be deceived by its retro UI.

Re: Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

#26

I got excited when I read "parametric"… thinking it would be akin to what Autocad Inventor had 20+ years ago (setting angles between lines, setting lines to be parallel etc.) since I was recently looking for a simple CAD tool that could do that. Alas.

For hobby/maker/semi-pro that would be Fusion360, Onshape, FreeCAD or Solvespace. And more, probably...

Re: Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

#27
post #15

I was briefly a member of a makerspace with a laser cutter - and it was brilliant! The ratio of effort to results was far better than any other CNC tools I’ve used. But then COVID and moving house put an end to that. I’d love to recreate something similar at home - but at a budget. Does anyone have a low cost laser cutter that actually works? It seems like there’s an increasing number of Chinese ones out there, but q…

There is a saying among those that operahe makerspaces: "people come for the 3d printer,and stay for the laser".

We have Redsail CO2 lasers for nearly 10 years now, in our volunteer ran makerspace in Oslo. It works, but does requires a bunch of setup and maintenance. Of course with hundreds of different users yearly, anything will need that... But it is more and gives poorer results than GCC/Epilog (which another local lab has, albeit with more professional maintenance crew). GlowForge targets a user group which accept less tinkering. PS: expect to spend at least the same amount of money/time on ventilation system as the machine itself!!

Re: Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

#28
post #10
post #4

I am one of the creators of Cuttle. It stems from my research building direct manipulation + programming environments like http://recursivedrawing.com/ and http://aprt.us/ From a programmer's perspective, you can think of Cuttle as a direct manipulation vector editor (like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator) that can be driven with parameters and JS code where you need it. Unlike my previous research projects, this is a c…

It would be neat to have STL and STEP output for 3D printers.

See Solvespace for that.

Re: Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

#29
post #4

I am one of the creators of Cuttle. It stems from my research building direct manipulation + programming environments like http://recursivedrawing.com/ and http://aprt.us/ From a programmer's perspective, you can think of Cuttle as a direct manipulation vector editor (like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator) that can be driven with parameters and JS code where you need it. Unlike my previous research projects, this is a c…

Cuttle is v cool, congratulations! I had previously seen Apparatus and liked it, so I can clearly see the genetic resemblance now ;) I’m wondering how many of you are on the team, and does it actually support you as a business yet? Even for a quite niche-y app Cuttle deserves to be better known, and higher-priced, imo.

Thanks! There are 5 of us on the team. Yes, the business is profitable.

Re: Obsessed with Cuttle: Parametric CAD for prototyping, producing, and procrastin

#30
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Cuttle project is — behind the scenes — a program. Each “component” is a function. “Modifiers” are functions that take input geometry (and parameters) and use JS code to create arbitrary output geometry. All of this code can be live edited. At the same time you can do arbitrary “drawing” with a bezier pen tool and move/transform shapes. In this case you are essentially using the canvas drag-and-drop to manipulate l…

Very cool work. FWIW the aparatus site says > Apparatus is under active development. Discuss how Apparatus should evolve on the Apparatus Google Group. Which seems like it's no longer accurate. Has it moved to a different repo?

Hmmm.. I would say Apparatus is no longer under active development. Researcher Joshua Horowitz was doing some work on it for a bit, but yeah I don’t think it’s changed much in several years. It should be regarded as a research project that scouted out several areas of the “programming experience” world that others can build on.
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