3 ms·

This is pretty neat. For those interested in automating CAD, Solidworks has a COM interface (great C# support) and Fusion 360 has Python, C++, and JavaScript in

This is pretty neat. For those interested in automating CAD, Solidworks has a COM interface (great C# support) and Fusion 360 has Python, C++, and JavaScript interfaces. https://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/api-support.htm https://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/api-support.htm https://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/?guid=GUID-C1545D80-D804-4CF3-886D-9B5C54B2D7A2 https://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/?guid=GUID-C154...

mhd 8y ago
CATIA has VBS, if you're in that particular circle of hell.
imglorp 8y ago
And fully programmatic CAD also, such as http://www.openscad.org/ http://www.openscad.org/
- analognoise 8y ago
  I guess for some or generative structures it makes sense, but programming a CAD object sounds like something from the 1970's. Being able to click on a corner and say, "fillet, radius whatever" makes way more sense to me. I must not be "getting it" - could you explain how it is better? I get that it's FOSS, so besides that?
  - etskinner 8y ago
    Has an effort to add a full GUI to OpenSCAD ever been considered? Would be absolutely amazing to be able to design the way you're describing, and then throw it into a git repo.
    - bsilvereagle 8y ago
      CadQuery allows scripting of FreeCAD, and comes close to "OpenSCAD with a GUI". https://github.com/dcowden/cadquery https://github.com/dcowden/cadquery
  - imglorp 8y ago
    The difference is programmatic cad can have composable, repeatable, and automatable operations. What if you have a thousand corners to fillet, in some kind of gradient, so each is a little different than the last? You won't be clicking and menu-ing your way out of that. What if you want to do transforms on models as part of a process, like read a pile of models and do something to each? Programmatic. And then you can pass that process to another transform doing something else. etc. In a programmatic cad system, it's just a few lines of code.

mhd 8y ago

CATIA has VBS, if you're in that particular circle of hell.

imglorp 8y ago

And fully programmatic CAD also, such as http://www.openscad.org/ http://www.openscad.org/

analognoise 8y ago
I guess for some or generative structures it makes sense, but programming a CAD object sounds like something from the 1970's. Being able to click on a corner and say, "fillet, radius whatever" makes way more sense to me. I must not be "getting it" - could you explain how it is better? I get that it's FOSS, so besides that?
- etskinner 8y ago
  Has an effort to add a full GUI to OpenSCAD ever been considered? Would be absolutely amazing to be able to design the way you're describing, and then throw it into a git repo.
  - bsilvereagle 8y ago
    CadQuery allows scripting of FreeCAD, and comes close to "OpenSCAD with a GUI". https://github.com/dcowden/cadquery https://github.com/dcowden/cadquery
- imglorp 8y ago
  The difference is programmatic cad can have composable, repeatable, and automatable operations. What if you have a thousand corners to fillet, in some kind of gradient, so each is a little different than the last? You won't be clicking and menu-ing your way out of that. What if you want to do transforms on models as part of a process, like read a pile of models and do something to each? Programmatic. And then you can pass that process to another transform doing something else. etc. In a programmatic cad system, it's just a few lines of code.