Do you know whether anyone using these types of tools (like OpenSCAD, CadQuery) in any serious design? By serious I mean, real, industrial use cases (think automotive, defense, aircraft, etc.). Or are these tools mainly targeting hobbyists?
Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
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Re: Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
#32Do you know whether anyone using these types of tools (like OpenSCAD, CadQuery) in any serious design? By serious I mean, real, industrial use cases (think automotive, defense, aircraft, etc.). Or are these tools mainly targeting hobbyists?
OpenSCAD is very much a hobbyist tool, I'm afraid. It has some internal representation issues (just try generating a STEP to see a few), but there are worse problems. Like the lack of easy fillets and chamfers, or the impossibility of cosmetic surfacing (often very hard even with good tools).
The reality is that the professional market is majority SolidWorks and everyone else fights over the rest. Though Dassault seems to be turning the screws a little too tight these days, so you never know what's in store in the future.
Re: Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something about CadQuery still feels a little off, but it's the only CAD tool I've found that really ticks all the boxes that I want, so I will nonetheless happily give it the prestigious "Least Bad According To Me" award.
My go-to for getting work done has been (and for the foreseeable future will still be) Fusion 360. I can't find a free alternative that is simultaneously batteries included, but also gets out of your way. It makes me feel like a shill saying something so positive about expensive, proprietary software, but it works _really_ well for my usecases (3D printing, 2.5D and 3D woodcraft carving). Having CAD and CAM in the sa…
Is my understanding correct that all your CAD data is stored in Autodesk cloud servers if you are using Fusion 360?
Re: Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
#34When I first got into 3D printing, I used OpenSCAD for my designs. The fact that objects are described with code made me feel right at home. It made it incredibly easy to make parametric designs. But later, I did start to feel the limitations. Not having automatic fillet/chamfer was huge. And sometimes, I wanted the ability to measure the distance between two points selected visually to make sure all my math involvin…
This describes my experience pretty closely. At first OpenSCAD seems like a dream come true: just assemble a few basic shapes with only a few lines of code and you're done!
But things get complicated pretty fast, and as you say, no fillet or chamfer is a terrible limitation. It calls for complex and unpleasant/ugly alternatives (usually, extruding 2D shapes that already have the right angles).
The other big problem with OpenSCAD is that very few true CAD programs are able to import it, and those who do, don't do it well.
So it is fun to play with, but unfortunately it's not really usable for serious work.
Re: Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are based on two different algorithms, but both should guarantee a topologically correct solid if implemented correctly. OpenSCAD is based on constructive geometry, which means the compute complexity scales up mainly along the complexity of the CSG tree which can get very big, but the number of triangles is quite low and independent of the resolution. This is not rasterized but the operation on CSG trees partiti…
That's very cool, thank you for explaining it to me. I'm curious if there's any downsides to such a scheme for representing solids compared to BREP, and the kinds of primitives it supports. E.g how easily can it represent a loft between two arbitrary faces - it's not immediately clear how to represent that with a SDF (but my SDF-foo is admittedly not very strong). These are questions that I'm sure will be answered by…
With two arbitrary faces on the same axis (say z), at locations z1 and z2 and the shape of each face being represented by the functions a(x,y) and b(x,y), you can get a loft SDF L(x,y,z) between a and b by the following math (this is not correct syntax for any tool I know but should make it clear what's happening):
if(zelif(z>z2) L=b(x,y)
else L=((z-z1)/(z2-z1))*a(x,y)+((z2-z)/(z2-z1))*b(x,y)
For way way more info, you might like https://iquilezles.org/www/articles/distfunctions/distfuncti...
Re: Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
#36I've worked a bit in OpenSCAD, and although I really enjoy the programming approach to generating 3D designs, it really is limited when compared to traditional CAD software. Being able to visually align an item, or use even basic commands like offset or fillet, are absent in OpenSCAD. Sure OpenSCAD has it's place, but I think that's in the area of procedural generated shapes, and it's not for 3D part or machine design.
For reference here are some of the items I designed using OpenSCAD:
https://cache.getlazarus.org/images/projects/101/case-and-st...
https://cache.codebot.org/prints/soldering-station.jpg
https://cache.getlazarus.org/images/desktop/soldering-kit-mo...
https://cache.codebot.org/prints/power-supply.jpg
https://cache.getlazarus.org/images/projects/102/control-box...
Re: Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
#37I used to use gmsh for all of my CSG + meshing work when I was doing simulations. Not done so for many years now though so not sure how it fares these days.
Re: Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
#38Do you know whether anyone using these types of tools (like OpenSCAD, CadQuery) in any serious design? By serious I mean, real, industrial use cases (think automotive, defense, aircraft, etc.). Or are these tools mainly targeting hobbyists?
We use those tools for industrial prototyping because we can program those in things like python.
We use it for creating as crappy designs as fast as possible, not getting designers to premature optimization.
For serious design no, we use expensive commercial software for that, once it is clear what the solution is.
For exploring lots of different spaces cheap 3d printer, cheap CNC milling machines and laser cutters are amazing.
We restrict access to serious software for early prototyping because people will try things like super complex organic shapes that require supports or special milling machines instead of machines that cost 100 less money.
That makes time to market so long and a design a competitor could squash the price when he uses cheap alternatives for manufacturing.
Re: Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
#39I definitely would use version based cad programs with coding options but the pickings are pretty slim for industrial applications aside from the big players. Particularly programs that can be custom built to the users needs.
Solidworks and Catia are often seen as unbeatable for industry but there are so many issues with them, particularly when used in smaller companies or startups. Need Mac support, never. Need multi-threading support, nope never going to implement it. Update the graphics so it doesn't look so ancient and clunky, never. Fusion/autocad are good but are full of bugs and the cloud service is annoying (e.g. I continuously have to delete log files to open the program). Being picky but this stuff shouldn't be hard by now given how long CAD has been around.
Are there any projects using something like rust or c++ to do a build and customise style cad program with versioning? I've tried cadquery, libfive etc. and none really fit the bill.
Re: Getting the best out of OpenSCAD
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
My go-to for getting work done has been (and for the foreseeable future will still be) Fusion 360. I can't find a free alternative that is simultaneously batteries included, but also gets out of your way. It makes me feel like a shill saying something so positive about expensive, proprietary software, but it works _really_ well for my usecases (3D printing, 2.5D and 3D woodcraft carving). Having CAD and CAM in the sa…
Is my understanding correct that all your CAD data is stored in Autodesk cloud servers if you are using Fusion 360?
With the free hobbyist version at least, yes that's correct. You can export the files however.