Automated CAD
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Automated CAD
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Re: Automated CAD
#2That's awesome. I've futzed around with OpenSCAD a bit, and the OP is talking about a workflow similar to what I had in mind for my projects.
What's neat is that you can generate a set of parts once (in code). You then assemble those parts (functions, really) into 3D shapes for visualization. And you lay out those same parts in a plane for 2D fabrication.
The main difficulty I had was that it seems to be necessary to calculate everything. As a simple example, suppose I've got a triangle-shaped part, and stick the flat side of it on a square part. What's the distance from the tip of triangle to the opposite flat side of the square? OpenSCAD knows, in some sense, because it drew it. But inside my OpenSCAD script, I don't, and I have to calculate the geometry in my code.
If there was some way to specify and capture the position of that point (or whatever), then it would be much easier to connect parts together.
Re: Automated CAD
#3Very interesting. I heard that OpenSCAD isn't fully reliable for production use though.
We've love to integrate this into https://Clara.io in some way.
Re: Automated CAD
#4That's awesome. I've futzed around with OpenSCAD a bit, and the OP is talking about a workflow similar to what I had in mind for my projects. What's neat is that you can generate a set of parts once (in code). You then assemble those parts (functions, really) into 3D shapes for visualization. And you lay out those same parts in a plane for 2D fabrication. The main difficulty I had was that it seems to be necessary to…
That is one of the difficulties. In a few of the more difficult calculations, I did what I could on the python side of things, and emitted a statement or function in the generated openscad files.
Re: Automated CAD
#5I've been messing around with OpenSCAD for a little. I am working on some 'art' projects that would make heavy use of geometric shapes and I love the idea of generating these things in code.
Another alternative that I've found, and like a lot, is OpenJSCAD. Very similiar to OpenSCAD but with javascript:
Re: Automated CAD
#6Very interesting. I heard that OpenSCAD isn't fully reliable for production use though. We've love to integrate this into https://Clara.io in some way.
The stable version of OpenSCAD has seemed to work well enough. I ran into some problems when I tried to use a nightly version to get some of the latest features.
I don't think anything about the overall process really ties to it OpenSCAD itself, there are many other parametric script-based modelers. It just happened to be the one I used. It would mean reworking some things, but I could switch to a different one if I needed to.
Re: Automated CAD
#7That's awesome. I've futzed around with OpenSCAD a bit, and the OP is talking about a workflow similar to what I had in mind for my projects. What's neat is that you can generate a set of parts once (in code). You then assemble those parts (functions, really) into 3D shapes for visualization. And you lay out those same parts in a plane for 2D fabrication. The main difficulty I had was that it seems to be necessary to…
> If there was some way to specify and capture the position of that point (or whatever), then it would be much easier to connect parts together.
This is usually done by a constraint solver. The most popular one in the industry is D-Cubed 3D DCM by Seimens: http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/open/d-...
I do not know any open source equivalents for 3D constraint solving. There is a few 2D ones that are open source I understand.
Re: Automated CAD
#8Very interesting. I heard that OpenSCAD isn't fully reliable for production use though. We've love to integrate this into https://Clara.io in some way.
OpenSCAD is decently reliable up to a certain amount of objects/vertices. Once I reach a limit rendering becomes too slow and sometimes makes OpenSCAD crash. What I ended up doing is to model individual parts (which is a good idea anyway, and OpenSCAD parametric modules work great for that) that I render to STLs individually, then import the STLs for everything but the part I am working on.
Re: Automated CAD
#9That's awesome. I've futzed around with OpenSCAD a bit, and the OP is talking about a workflow similar to what I had in mind for my projects. What's neat is that you can generate a set of parts once (in code). You then assemble those parts (functions, really) into 3D shapes for visualization. And you lay out those same parts in a plane for 2D fabrication. The main difficulty I had was that it seems to be necessary to…
I tried to get into various CAD applications at various points in time and never managed to "get it". It was mostly about the interface, you just have to invest a lot of time (more than I was willing to spend) to get even remotely useful results.
OpenSCAD on the other hand immediately clicked - at least for me as a programmer. I just had to look up the available primitives and combine them to my liking. This totally jibes with my mental model of the thing I want to build and parametrizing your models is pretty easy.
My main gripe with OpenSCAD is that it is missing good features to generate more "organic" shapes, i.e. beveled edges and rounded corners require a lot of work. They are possible (i.e. with Minkowski sums) but the resulting complex shapes quickly bring the engine to its knees.
Re: Automated CAD
#10An easy way to play around with parametric or specification based custom manufacturing is by making custom food (like sandwiches) for people, but only accept orders in a standard computer readable format.
Interesting questions are raised. Is there a limit to topping counts? Is there an implied order to toppings? If toppings have a cost, do you calculate that as the supplier or leave that to the consumer? How do you make sure an order is vegetarian? What do you do if you can't fulfill an order due to topping shortage?
Also, if it's that kind of party, people will start making their own food order generators, raising another set of interesting questions.