3 ms·
FreeCAD has a built in OpenSCAD engine. I started with OpenSCAD but found FreeCAD to be way more productive for me when it came to actually producing 3d object
by btreecat 2y ago
FreeCAD has a built in OpenSCAD engine.
I started with OpenSCAD but found FreeCAD to be way more productive for me when it came to actually producing 3d objects. Sometimes I want to start with a square, then delete a line, and add a semi circle. But I don't always know that until I start sketching. With OpenSCAD I feel you have to know the shape primitive you need, then the exact way to modify it, and the fact that it encourages 3D primitives over 2d w/ extrusion and rotating was kinda annoying imo.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoBelatedly: this engine has one absolutely fantastic advantage, too. Because it interprets the file as a sequence of Part object manipulations, it's a very useful way of getting a bRep representation of an OpenSCAD document, so you get the opportunity to generate a clean, minimal STEP file. OpenSCAD cannot do this itself, and the other conversion approaches just get you a triangle mesh packaged in a STEP file. It's not perfect -- you get a mesh if you use Minkowski or hull operations. But it's good.