OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
openscad.org
OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
1–10 of 191 posts
Re: OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
#2I've made a bunch of stuff in OpenSCAD and it can be really nice to work with but... it does have a bunch of weirdnesses like not being to find the size of a compound object, having to micro-manage your objects to avoid the spinning beach ball render, fillets/chamfers/rounded edges/etc. are dark arts, etc.
If you're basically sticking simple shapes together or cutting simple shapes out of other shapes, it's fine enough.
Re: OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
#3Don't miss the https://github.com/nophead/NopSCADlib library for OpenSCAD, which includes a tremendous amount of useful shapes, functions, and the ability to produce exploded diagrams, assembly instructions, etc.
Re: OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
#4Wow, looks like the project might still be alive. Hopefully we get a new release year.
Re: OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
#5I've made a bunch of stuff in OpenSCAD and it can be really nice to work with but... it does have a bunch of weirdnesses like not being to find the size of a compound object, having to micro-manage your objects to avoid the spinning beach ball render, fillets/chamfers/rounded edges/etc. are dark arts, etc. If you're basically sticking simple shapes together or cutting simple shapes out of other shapes, it's fine enou…
Yeah, it has its charms but... Good luck making a filet or a chamfer between two faces whose intersection has a non-trivial placement.
Being able to easily reference existing edges and faces for future operations is one of the things that make other CAD so simple.
Re: OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
#6Don't miss the https://github.com/nophead/NopSCADlib library for OpenSCAD, which includes a tremendous amount of useful shapes, functions, and the ability to produce exploded diagrams, assembly instructions, etc.
thank you!
Re: OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
#7the "manifold" renderer makes possible some stunts that couldn't be done before. for example, i made this "usa counties" outline from a png: https://www.printables.com/model/895723-usa-counties
its under the "features" preference, doesn't work for everything yet, but is worth investigating if you haven't.
Re: OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
#8Wow, looks like the project might still be alive. Hopefully we get a new release year.
it is still alive yes the repo is active.
Re: OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
#9What are people's thoughts on CAD generation with LLMs for OpenSCAD and other proprietary GUI-based softwares? I imagine soon we will also be able to "autocomplete" or "semantically edit" feature trees in SolidWorks, Fusion, etc.
Re: OpenSCAD: The Programmer's Solid 3D CAD Modeller
#10OpenSCAD has been great for simple projects. It’s very easy to get productive with if you know basic programming concepts. However, I’ve run into frustrating limitations on more complex projects. The core geometry engine is skittish.
I still use OpenSCAD, but I’m diving into the OCCT ecosystem. It has a steeper learning curve, but seems to be significantly more robust.