SolidPython VS solvespace

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

Check out SolidPython, a front-end to OpenSCAD in Python that generates OpenSCAD code. It's actively developed (latest commit was 16 days ago) and has some excellent features, including first-class negative spaces - once you declare something to be a hole, the library makes sure that, no matter what, you will get a hole in the final model.

The mesh is already generated. I'm using a library (https://github.com/SolidCode/SolidPython) that generates OpenSCAD code which can be exported to pretty much any 3D format you want.

If you share an Excel (or, better yet, CSV) file, I can put up some Python code that outputs the OpenSCAD you want. I wrote SolidPython for exactly situations like this-- when you want to interface with other kinds of programs than just modeling.

In addition to first-class negative space (a hole like OP asked for), the SolidPython OpenSCAD binding also includes +, -, and * operators for union, difference, and intersection. (Disclosure; I’m the author)

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.

We use rebase on solvespace, along with sensible squashing so most commits along master are pretty self contained. You can see the clean history here:

https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/commits/master/

I changed a behavior to the "more standard" one because it felt obviously right. This was a 3 line change. But the was enough backlash right there in the pull request. So I spent a couple hours remembering how to add a configuration option to keep the old way for those guys:

https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/pull/1425

> If you like Linkage, you might also like Solvespace.

No, I mean Brent Curry's Linkage[1] bicycle design software, not David Rector's Linkage Mechanism Designer and Simulator[2].

You should read Wikipedia article.[0]

N.B. About SolveSpace, as I'm its experienced user[youtube,patreon], I may say next: yes, it could be used for bike mockup, as any other CAD, but it still has a lot of limitations and even does not export correct STEP files yet[3], and in FreeCAD such STEP could fixed only partially.[video]

So, for serious 3D CAD work I highly recommend use FreeCAD (and LibreCAD for 2D CAD work) instead of SolveSpace, and use SolveSpace only as a helper tool like a calc or as a notepad for noting ideas.

About Linkage Mechanism Designer and Simulator, it is only useful for planar (2D) kinematics analyze, and if You are looking an alternative for it take a look on Pyslvs[4], that is in part based on SolveSpace's solver.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rattleCAD#History

[1] https://bikechecker.com/

[2] https://blog.rectorsquid.com/linkage-mechanism-designer-and-...

[3] https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/issues/206

[4] https://github.com/KmolYuan/Pyslvs-UI

[video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3LJMeqUDrU

[youtube] https://www.youtube.com/@appsoft

[patreon] https://patreon.com/app4soft

C++ this file covers all the math for working with NURBS curves and surfaces:

https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/blob/master/src/srf...

There is a lot more in other files - triangulation, booleans, creation - but the core math functions are there in very readable form.

>> Maybe somebody has statistical survey of how much of the existing deployed CPU core count is typically used?

My guess is very few cores are used on average. I did some testing with Solvespace to see which build options contributed most to performance:

https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/issues/972

Obviously using OpenMP for multi-core was the big win. But what's not shown is that in typical usage (not the test I ran) if you're dragging some geometry around it will use all cores (in my case 4 cores / 8 threads) at about 50 percent utilization. That percentage probably drops as more cores are thrown at it due to Amdahl's Law. In other words, throwing double the cores at it will give a good boost to a lot of code that is already taking less than half the time (wall clock time, not CPU time).

We added OpenMP to a number of functions for significant performance gains. And in fact, any remining single-thread operation that gets the parallel treatment is likely to have a significant impact on overall performance since that is where most of the time is spent now. At this point we're more focused on features and bugs.

Algorithmic improvements are possible and I'd like to do those in the future, but they are much harder to do than sprinkling some #pragmas around critical loops. That will improve the scalability though, where multithreading really did not.

Yeah why should we even care about s390 for some things?

https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/issues/1264

I don't think big commercial customers are designing airplanes with it.