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µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

microcad.xyz

31–40 of 139 posts

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#31

I've been using zoo and its KCL language with some success for boundary-representation CAD writing. If I understood correctly, µcad serves the same purpose. Comparing code samples between both of them, I personally enjoy KCL's pipelined approach more. My main beef with zoo is the fact that they are promoting vendor lock-in by forcing users to use their cloud-hosted geometry kernel with absolutely no local alternative…

Zoo has said it's open to local hosting of the kernel for years. I believe it's a matter of time because it's mostly about legal tape.

ucad is based on Manifold, so unfortunately, not really comparable, since it's all meshes vs brep, like OpenSCAD.

Note KCL could be completely augmented with another kernel. There are people who've already tried :)

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#34
post #18

Interesting project, I will look into it. This site sucks. Why does it use php, and why is every link a query? Just make it a static page.

>https://microcad.xyz/?brx_pyuqqz%5B%5D=code&brx_pyuqqz%5B%5D...

>brx_pyuqqz

That's certainly an array name.

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#35
post #32

Looks like a promising alternative to OpenSCAD. Although am I the only one to notice the swastika in their logo?

> Although am I the only one to notice the swastika in their logo?

Possibly. Although I know it's the wrong way round to be a Nazi swastika, it's made all the more odd by the fact that this is a German project.

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#36
Super fascinating project. I'm very interested in this. I truly hate using the tools by hand and as a programmer, this feels waaaay more intuitive. That said, when reviewing the gear video, I think understanding to start with the gear primitive would require giving the libraries a good once over as I wouldn't have assumed those existed.

Can imagine more and more forms being built in as the community goes.

kudos!

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#37
post #33
post #18

Interesting project, I will look into it. This site sucks. Why does it use php, and why is every link a query? Just make it a static page.

PHP is fine. If the site sucks it’s not because of the language.

yeah, a lot of frontend/styling choices are pretty non-asthetic other than the suboptimal performance.

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#39
post #21

So what is the big advantage of this over OpenSCAD?

I found this: https://docs.microcad.xyz/language/book/intro/preface.html >While OpenSCAD is easy to learn and has a syntax reminiscent of C, we felt the language could be improved in several ways: > - more specialization for creating graphics, > - better support for modular programming, > - strict typing and unit handling, > - a syntax closer to Rust than to C, > - a solid library system, > - plugin support for other…

I like openscad because it use a syntax more like c than rust. Making the syntax more c like opens the user base up. Not everyone sees rust syntax as a benefit. Just my 2 cents

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#40

Tried openscad and then cadquery for some geometry iteration projects and found them clunky. It wasn't just that I was missing a UI; the functions, constraints and geometry kernel weren't as powerful as onshape, which I've used a bit, and presumably light years behind fusion 360, which I haven't used. Even freecad, a UI-based oss cad, is not quite ergonomic for a beginner-to-intermediate user, though it has come a lo…

freecad with the new ui + its openscad integration is pretty good.

openscad in general is quite easy if you can functionally program

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