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I feel like OpenSCAD is extremely good for generative art (where its programming language is useful), but sorely lacking for designing functional hardware. It d
by zbrozek 8y ago
I feel like OpenSCAD is extremely good for generative art (where its programming language is useful), but sorely lacking for designing functional hardware. It doesn't even have a measure tool! It's vastly too slow at previewing and rendering, and building everything out of various intersections of basic solids is cool at first and rapidly becomes infuriating. While not FOSS - but still suitable for tinkerers - Fusion 360 and SolidWorks both have maker-friendly licensing and are dramatically superior tools.
- nrp 8y agoI’ll agree with the slowness issues, but I’ve found OpenSCAD extremely useful for functional hardware, especially when implementing something against a spec or physical measurements that need to be iterated open. As examples, I’ve designed a PC chassis and working housekey copies in OpenSCAD, both of which benefit massively from being fully parametric. On the measure tool, it usually isn’t necessary because your critical dimensions should be inputs into your SCAD rather than outputs from it. Even so, there is a pretty useful set of modules for generating dimensioned drawings: http://www.cannymachines.com/entries/9/openscad_dimensioned_drawings http://www.cannymachines.com/entries/9/openscad_dimensioned_...
- eltoozero 8y agoBookmarked. Very cool, these are great modules and I will be happy to have them in my SCAD toolkit. Thank you!