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I love Solvespace. It really changed the way that I perceive CAD when I got into designing 3d printed parts that needed to fit together.

phkahler 5y ago
>> I love Solvespace. It really changed the way that I perceive CAD when I got into designing 3d printed parts that needed to fit together. The next version should be able to link STL files into your models - complete with boolean operations. The linking code exists on one of my branches, but I still need to work out which verticies get point entities created for building geometry on. I know how to do it, just not efficiently yet.
- FullyFunctional 5y ago
  I admittedly know very little about CAD internals, but I design models for 3D printing and STL seems so ... awful ... yet as the lowest common denominator it has a tremendous support everywhere. What are the alternatives? I assume Solvespace uses something better natively, but you still have to export to STL to go through a slicer to get G code? It really seems like a better job could be done without both STL and G code.
  - zokier 5y ago
    > What are the alternatives? The main alternatives are IGES and STEP files. STEP is an ISO standard CAD interchange format, and the most modern of the bunch.
    - phkahler 5y ago
      STEP is a huge standard. Solvespace can export it because it only needs a small portion of the standard. I'm guessing the slicers used for 3D printing have avoided it due to the complexity, but it would be nice to hand them actual curved surfaces and spit out G-code with arcs if not splines.
      - FullyFunctional 5y ago
        It seems to me that slicers must replicate a lot of tools and information that CAD tools already have; driving this directly from the CAD database could avoid the information loss and ugly facets introduced by the export to STL. Heck, I'd even like to take a step further and eliminate G-code which has a lot of limitations, added extrinsic complexity, and doesn't allow for feedback.

phkahler 5y ago

>> I love Solvespace. It really changed the way that I perceive CAD when I got into designing 3d printed parts that needed to fit together. The next version should be able to link STL files into your models - complete with boolean operations. The linking code exists on one of my branches, but I still need to work out which verticies get point entities created for building geometry on. I know how to do it, just not efficiently yet.

FullyFunctional 5y ago
I admittedly know very little about CAD internals, but I design models for 3D printing and STL seems so ... awful ... yet as the lowest common denominator it has a tremendous support everywhere. What are the alternatives? I assume Solvespace uses something better natively, but you still have to export to STL to go through a slicer to get G code? It really seems like a better job could be done without both STL and G code.
- zokier 5y ago
  > What are the alternatives? The main alternatives are IGES and STEP files. STEP is an ISO standard CAD interchange format, and the most modern of the bunch.
  - phkahler 5y ago
    STEP is a huge standard. Solvespace can export it because it only needs a small portion of the standard. I'm guessing the slicers used for 3D printing have avoided it due to the complexity, but it would be nice to hand them actual curved surfaces and spit out G-code with arcs if not splines.
    - FullyFunctional 5y ago
      It seems to me that slicers must replicate a lot of tools and information that CAD tools already have; driving this directly from the CAD database could avoid the information loss and ugly facets introduced by the export to STL. Heck, I'd even like to take a step further and eliminate G-code which has a lot of limitations, added extrinsic complexity, and doesn't allow for feedback.