3 ms·

I've also been asking myself what people do with programmatic CAD. I've used OpenSCAD once to create a simple, cylindrical object, but about 80% of the things I

by fainpul 11mo ago

I've also been asking myself what people do with programmatic CAD. I've used OpenSCAD once to create a simple, cylindrical object, but about 80% of the things I create (using conventional CAD, like Fusion 360) would be way too complex for that. And even the simplest shapes are just much faster to create and modify in Fusion. Maybe this is the "everything looks like a nail" problem for programmers who have never tried CAD?

joker99 11mo ago
I recently used this https://makerworld.com/de/models/1765102-10-inch-mini-rack-generator https://makerworld.com/de/models/1765102-10-inch-mini-rack-g... to generate various mounts for my home lab mini rack. The idea is that everything needs to fit into the same width of rack, but every device is slightly different so custom creating these becomes annoying quickly. This generator was a godsend
- fainpul 11mo ago
  So the appeal for you, as the "user", is that you can easily customize the parameters which are made customizable by the designer and get a suitable model without requiring proprietary software (or any software at all). I can see the appeal of that. But I assume the designer spent quite a lot of time, creating this in OpenSCAD and make it customizable. He was also restricted to making shapes which are easily described in OpenSCAD, where he might have gone for a more elaborate design if it was easy to do.
WillAdams 11mo ago
For me, I've never done well w/ traditional 3D CAD (need to find time to try Moment of Inspiration 3D), and I've been working on wood joinery where a test joint which was 1" x 2" x 1" took some 20 minutes to do CAM, and created a ~120MB file --- programming the tool movement directly seems a better approach, so I've been working on: https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

3 ms·

I've also been asking myself what people do with programmatic CAD. I've used OpenSCAD once to create a simple, cylindrical object, but about 80% of the things I

by fainpul 11mo ago

joker99 11mo ago
I recently used this https://makerworld.com/de/models/1765102-10-inch-mini-rack-generator https://makerworld.com/de/models/1765102-10-inch-mini-rack-g... to generate various mounts for my home lab mini rack. The idea is that everything needs to fit into the same width of rack, but every device is slightly different so custom creating these becomes annoying quickly. This generator was a godsend
- fainpul 11mo ago
  So the appeal for you, as the "user", is that you can easily customize the parameters which are made customizable by the designer and get a suitable model without requiring proprietary software (or any software at all). I can see the appeal of that. But I assume the designer spent quite a lot of time, creating this in OpenSCAD and make it customizable. He was also restricted to making shapes which are easily described in OpenSCAD, where he might have gone for a more elaborate design if it was easy to do.
WillAdams 11mo ago
For me, I've never done well w/ traditional 3D CAD (need to find time to try Moment of Inspiration 3D), and I've been working on wood joinery where a test joint which was 1" x 2" x 1" took some 20 minutes to do CAM, and created a ~120MB file --- programming the tool movement directly seems a better approach, so I've been working on: https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview