SolidPython VS BOSL

https://github.com/SolidCode/SolidPython --- apparently there's a fork as a v2 which is to be preferred

Then use SolidPython to generate the scad files. ;)

I wonder how many OpenSCAD wrappers now exist? I know of scad-clj [0], openpyscad [1], and solidpython [2].

I particularly like scad-clj, because of `lein auto generate`. It watches source files, and regenerates the OpenSCAD files automatically, which OpenSCAD then also picks up. Although I'm not well versed in Clojure, and find debugging Clojure tricky, the workflow is just so good.

[0] https://github.com/farrellm/scad-clj

[1] https://github.com/taxpon/openpyscad

[2] https://github.com/SolidCode/SolidPython

Also, if it’s screw threads you’re after, there may just be some faster (== non-minkowski) ways to do that. OpenSCAD calculates polyhedrons much faster than big unions of parts. Buut, OpenSCAD also kinda sucks for doing vector math. I wrote SolidPython to get around some of the constrictions of OpenSCAD, and the screw_thread utility method should render decently detailed threads (120 segments per revolution, say) in a few seconds.

This sub is understandably enthusiastic about the OpenSCAD language, but I’m with you in preferring existing general purpose languages. For browser-enabled Python & OpenSCAD, check out ViewSCAD, or for basic Python, see my SolidPython

OpenSCAD provides the primitives for constructive geometry. Anything beyond that requires libraries. BOSL is quite popular (although I use BOSL rather than BOSL2 because BOSL2 is not finalized). https://github.com/revarbat/BOSL

If you have any programming experience then OpenSCAD might be worth a look. Up until very recently I have used it exclusively for the past few years. It takes a bit to build yourself up a personal library of common shapes but once you do you can code up a design pretty quickly. And if you use any type of good programming experience your designs are parametric by default. There are also existing libraries out there that can help out quite a bit (e.g. https://github.com/revarbat/BOSL and https://github.com/JustinSDK/dotSCAD)

Back to topic, you might find Round Anything to be useful -- I certainly have. I haven't used it yet, but the shell2d() out of the Belfry OpenScad Library also looks like it would be helpful for these sort of functional parts.

In the end for that project I came back to OpenSCAD, because it could handle a lot more objects and operations, didn't require any setup and it was for me pretty intuitive. I am using BOSL library and it simplifies code a lot (tons of helpers for easy transformations, array, rotation arrays; basic shapes supporting chamfers and fillets, chamfer and fillet masks).

https://github.com/revarbat/BOSL/wiki/beziers.scad#bezier_polyline