7 ms·

FWIW, I went through the exact opposite progression of what you described (Fusion->FreeCAD->OpenSCAD), and I liked OpenSCAD the best. I feel like I've gotten go

FWIW, I went through the exact opposite progression of what you described (Fusion->FreeCAD->OpenSCAD), and I liked OpenSCAD the best. I feel like I've gotten good models out of it, and have done elaborate enough stuff in the process. I suppose there's no accounting for taste.

SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
I prefer the style of OpenSCAD but I’ve found that there are certain things that the software just is either really hard to achieve or incapable of doing entirely. One recent example is that I was designing a part for injection molding and I needed to add a draft angle to the part. This seemingly simple operation is rather trivial to do in FreeCAD and Fusion 360. It is not at all trivial in OpenSCAD. Another example of OpenSCAD’s limitations is the render time for parts produced by boolean operations which this change purportedly helps a lot with. But there is also still not a guarantee that the output of those boolean operations is actually a manifold object. Slicers these days are actually quite good at repairing geometry but even with a moderately complex part produced by boolean operations (in my case it was often one that required subtraction of cylinders across multiple pieces of an object) I found OpenSCAD’s output to produce some bizarre issues with geometry that even the slicer could not repair very well. I too like OpenSCAD the best and often find myself more productive in it than other pieces of software, especially for simple models. But for complex models it can’t really hold up to the more traditional parametric modeling software (yet)
- alpaca128 5y ago
  I only experienced issues with OpenSCADs STLs if I used `difference()` with overlapping surfaces (aka when it flickers in the preview). Even then the slicer's repair feature fixed it. For me the main limitation in OpenSCAD is the UI: distance labels along the XYZ axes are unreadable when they overlap with a surface, transparency only works with one object at a time. Also I'd love highlighted edges in the preview & split view, it would make alignment of parts so much easier. Still I'm so much more productive in it than e.g. FreeCAD because I have most of what I need memorized and the rest can be looked up on the one-page cheatsheet.
zibzab 5y ago
For me it was FreeCAD->OpenSCAD->Fusion->back to OpenSCAD. Some tasks are extremely easy in OpenSCAD. Fusion is not that hard either, but it is a commercial tool with a free-ish version where they keep your designs hostage. It doesn't run on Linux which makes life hard for multi platform folks. Also, in past I have had issues with STL generated by Fusion. OpenSCAD is not perfect though, for example is missing important functions such as alignment and assembly
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  What do you mean by hostage? I can export my work in f3d file and, hopefully, can import it as well.
  - ur-whale 5y ago
    > I can export my work in f3d file One thing Autodesk is truly infamous for industry-wide is being the utter worst when it comes to file formats. They make their file format unreadable by anything other than they products by design. And even within their own product line, it sometimes doesn't work. So I'll ask you this: what can you do with your f3d file? Can you import it into blender to render it with a proper rendering engine? Can you open it with a text editor and change things in it? Can you convert your model to a format that's readable by other tools? Can fusion import models created by other tools?
    - vbezhenar 5y ago
      I can export my file to plenty of other formats. I've used .3mf to move it to prusa slicer, for example.
      - ungamedplayer 5y ago
        That's not what is being asked.
        floatboth 5y ago
parski 5y ago
This is what I did too.
hulitu 5y ago
Every man tastes different.

SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago

I prefer the style of OpenSCAD but I’ve found that there are certain things that the software just is either really hard to achieve or incapable of doing entirely. One recent example is that I was designing a part for injection molding and I needed to add a draft angle to the part. This seemingly simple operation is rather trivial to do in FreeCAD and Fusion 360. It is not at all trivial in OpenSCAD. Another example of OpenSCAD’s limitations is the render time for parts produced by boolean operations which this change purportedly helps a lot with. But there is also still not a guarantee that the output of those boolean operations is actually a manifold object. Slicers these days are actually quite good at repairing geometry but even with a moderately complex part produced by boolean operations (in my case it was often one that required subtraction of cylinders across multiple pieces of an object) I found OpenSCAD’s output to produce some bizarre issues with geometry that even the slicer could not repair very well. I too like OpenSCAD the best and often find myself more productive in it than other pieces of software, especially for simple models. But for complex models it can’t really hold up to the more traditional parametric modeling software (yet)

alpaca128 5y ago
I only experienced issues with OpenSCADs STLs if I used `difference()` with overlapping surfaces (aka when it flickers in the preview). Even then the slicer's repair feature fixed it. For me the main limitation in OpenSCAD is the UI: distance labels along the XYZ axes are unreadable when they overlap with a surface, transparency only works with one object at a time. Also I'd love highlighted edges in the preview & split view, it would make alignment of parts so much easier. Still I'm so much more productive in it than e.g. FreeCAD because I have most of what I need memorized and the rest can be looked up on the one-page cheatsheet.

zibzab 5y ago

For me it was FreeCAD->OpenSCAD->Fusion->back to OpenSCAD. Some tasks are extremely easy in OpenSCAD. Fusion is not that hard either, but it is a commercial tool with a free-ish version where they keep your designs hostage. It doesn't run on Linux which makes life hard for multi platform folks. Also, in past I have had issues with STL generated by Fusion. OpenSCAD is not perfect though, for example is missing important functions such as alignment and assembly

vbezhenar 5y ago
What do you mean by hostage? I can export my work in f3d file and, hopefully, can import it as well.
- ur-whale 5y ago
  > I can export my work in f3d file One thing Autodesk is truly infamous for industry-wide is being the utter worst when it comes to file formats. They make their file format unreadable by anything other than they products by design. And even within their own product line, it sometimes doesn't work. So I'll ask you this: what can you do with your f3d file? Can you import it into blender to render it with a proper rendering engine? Can you open it with a text editor and change things in it? Can you convert your model to a format that's readable by other tools? Can fusion import models created by other tools?
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    I can export my file to plenty of other formats. I've used .3mf to move it to prusa slicer, for example.
    - ungamedplayer 5y ago
      That's not what is being asked.
      - floatboth 5y ago

parski 5y ago

This is what I did too.

hulitu 5y ago

Every man tastes different.