Anyone using OpenSCAD? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: berke
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2024, 09:10:41 am
content: Just got a Prusa MINI+ last week and I started using it with OpenSCAD. Otherwise I'm a 3D printing noob. My use case is typical, printing enclosures for projects.Here are my observations about OpenSCAD:- The built-in editor (a Qt widget I guess) is trash, but you don't have to use it. I use Emacs, and as soon as I save the file OpenSCAD gets inotify'd and refreshes the display. Emacs even has a "SCAD" mode, and C-c C-o invokes OpenSCAD.- The previewer GUI is OK, but rendering doesn't work very well with transparent surfaces, and because there is no cutting plane it's hard to see what's going on, you have to put switches in your code to remove parts.- There is no interactive ruler / measure function in the GUI either.- You can change parameters live in the GUI which is nice except that it doesn't refresh the view in a timely manner.- The language is meh. It pretends to be functional but it's irregular, doesn't even have decent closures. Weird module/function distinction, no higher-order modules, no nested or anonymous modules, weird "children()" mechanism for defining operators... It's not too bad but could be much better. Because OpenSCAD has irritating language rules, some people have written generators around it. There is at least one Rust crate.- I have also used POVRay a bit, which is a CSG (constructive solid geometry) ray-tracer, the language there is more complete, more robust and coherent.- There is no constraint resolution facility of any sort.- OpenSCAD is based on CSG yet is still working on meshes, you need to specify meshing parameters for example for spheres and cylinders.- Generating text is easy and you can use arbitrary fonts.- Documentation is good- No facility to verify if different parts are interfering or touchingOverall for me it's still much nicer than using FreeCAD.I don't know if there is any fork or variant, or another CAD package that allows a similar workflow (text entry) but is of a higher quality. If wouldn't have to be free but needs to work well under Linux and a cost not exceeding three digits.For me, the things that need to be urgently done are:- Fix the language so that it's actually functional, or maybe replace it with something that exists, like Ocaml or Scheme. There are some libraries but not too much legacy so not much would be lost if the language is completely changed.- Redo the previewer using a fragment shader that takes the CSG tree and properly implements transparency, etc. and can do cutting planesTo scratch my own itch I'll probably just define a couple of OCaml combinators that generate OpenSCAD primitives and define things that way.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2024, 09:59:44 am
content: You might want to look at something I did in OpenSCAD. I defined a way to do cutaway using an arbitrary shape, not only a plane. I also made support for one layout for printing, and one for viewing the parts assembled.https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:135065Bruno Levy at INRIA Nancy has recently been working on a new CSG library that has a front end to input OpenSCAD files. I suspect he would be open to improving the language to be more functional, or an alternative equivalent language.https://twitter.com/BrunoLevy01/status/1753815907221066239

author: berke
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2024, 01:47:59 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 05, 2024, 09:59:44 amYour cutaway idea is nice, I'll reuse that. If you made the cutting plane location a parameter you would be able to adjust it from the previewer, no? For the layouts, I defined boolean parameters at the top for that reason, although I don't know when exactly OpenSCAD decides to re-render.QuoteWow, Levy's Geogram stuff looks absolutely amazing. I'll have to dig into it, at the very least his visualization works properly.

author: abeyer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2024, 09:21:48 pm
content: Quote from: berke on February 05, 2024, 09:10:41 amhttps://github.com/Irev-Dev/curated-code-cad

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2024, 08:44:30 am
content: Yes, I'm having a look at geogram as well. Interesting stuff to go beyond OpenSCAD.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2024, 10:53:44 pm
content: OpenSCAD makes difficult thing easy and easy things difficult. For example, applying fillet to specific edges is a nightmare. I think that what it lakes is the ability to refer to object features such as faces, lines and corners.I have used it for years but gave up and am now very happy with OnShape. Free, intuitive, platform independent, and cloud storage.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2024, 08:39:36 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on June 29, 2024, 10:53:44 pmTheBOSL2 libraryfor it makes positioning objects with a coincident face and edge relatively trivial and vastly simplifies adding fillets to specific edges or classes of edges (e.g. all in a particular orientation or surrounding a specific face). The down-side is the amount of complexity 'under the hood' which can result in long render times.

author: Conrad Hoffman
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2024, 07:14:05 pm
content: I just used it for the first time for some simple tooling fixtures at work. We have Solidworks but limited licenses for too many people and I don't use it enough to be any good at it. Too much to remember. OpenSCAD got my work done quickly and the learning curve was easy, but I've done some programming in the past. I can see that for any sophisticated design it would be a nightmare. Having to overlap blocks isn't difficult but there's no reason the user should even have to think about it. All in all, for many things it's just the ticket and the price is right.

author: Quarlo Klobrigney
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2025, 05:36:19 am
content: My question is, where is/are all the forums?Iv'e looked and looked, but most are gone.Please no Facebook or YouToob with logins, just forums that are available with and without signup.I've done a few things on my own already but nothing very complicated.Downloading others works is not what I want to do, but I've managed to add parameters and descriptive function comments where none were provided.That in itself helped me understand a lot but nowhere on some peoples levels.Right now I'm trying to understand a plate with varying shaped sides, by adding 1 unit X-Y vertical cylinders on Z zero and then hull them to my required shape.In searching, I found a handy tool but it only runs on Adobe AirHe really had something there but?andhttps://www.thingiverse.com/thing:13348Oh well back to my cylinders and arranging by hand to understand the stl shape without comments or parameters or the ability to vary the size including a hole in the plate.Then there's creating a bunch of custom objects to do difference on hoping to square nibble away at a rectangular plate to the right shapeAnd yes I tried FreeCAD and my head explodes with the lack of proper YouTube videos, with a 1440 resolution and 1 mm high text on a 1.5 meter screen, fast rambling, no part 2 or example code to study.Oh yeah, those resemble OpenSCAD videos too.

author: Quarlo Klobrigney
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 09:15:36 pm
content: Ooops! I spoke too soon.FreeCAD 1.1.0 is a new game. I downloaded the nightly build for my Linux machine and looked at what appears to be a real persons videos and now I get it!I say appears to be because the AI voice can be detected. Such things as fillet are pronounced fill-itand other times fill-lay "filet" as in of beef.I think now I will abandon OpenSCAD and do more FreeCAD.So..... Yes I think it's DEAD with v1.1.0 and the videos newly available. From Deltahedra: