cadquery VS SolidPython

OpenSCAD is my go-to. It's self-contained and AI coding tools know the syntax well enough to help you move fast. Unfortunately I keep hitting a complexity ceiling.

If it doesn't like how I'm describing something, it crashes. I have to load an older version of my .scad and try a new approach. This usually happens 70% of the way into a complex project, which is quite discouraging.

The Python ecosystem has CadQuery[0] and a few other tools built around the Open Cascade kernel[1] which is quite good in my limited experience. CadQuery is positioned as an OpenSCAD alternative [2], and I really want it to be. Unfortunately the user experience isn't there yet.

Making an object with CadQuery is writing a Python program. Which means you need a Python environment and dev setup. CQ-editor [3] is nice, but needs a Python environment first. I think CadQuery would be much more viable OpenSCAD alternative if it was packaged into a standalone CQ-editor application and published via homebrew, etc.

I'm also interest in Zoo [4](fka KittyCAD). They're trying to create a modelling tool that combines model-by-code and model-by-mouse. With some AI layered on top. They have an interesting architecture where they stream geometry to your local device from the cloud. Should be great for performance, but ties you to the cloud.

[0] https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cascade_Technology

[2] https://cadquery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/intro.html#why-cad...

[3] https://github.com/CadQuery/CQ-editor

[4] https://zoo.dev/

There aren't many great production-ready open-source frameworks for code-editor components in Swift. I assessed quite a few but found that the feature completeness was far from what I needed. I tried to fork [CodeEditSourceEditor](https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery) and add the extra features I wanted, but I think it would have taken me 6-12 months to get it to an acceptable state, meanwhile not spending any time focusing on the rest of the product experience.

I decided to play around with Typescript and Electron over a weekend and ended up getting a really solid prototype so I made the heart wrenching decision to move over.

I'm messing around with writing my own text editor component in Swift now, but it's quite a big endeavour to get the standard expected for a production ready product.

I'm assuming a pure-swift CAD UI would be equally difficult. Would be really cool to see that tho.

I was thinking about cadQuery or DrawSVG. But maybe you have a better idea ? I'm beginner in python (started on november ...)

Last few months, I've made over 20 3D printed panels using the CadQuery Python library. Its syntax is pretty complex, so every time I wanted to make a panel, I'd just copy-paste bits and pieces from my previous panels. In the process, I learned what work and what doesn't, and I thought it was time to polish up this system to share it with others.

>Python for CAD

You might be interested in CadQuery:

https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery

Spicy! I'm also a solidworks user but I've been playing around with cadquery recently, that installed and performs pretty nicely on Linux for me. Haven't really pushed it though.

I am currently developing a pipeline for creating STL files, slice them and create a print job based on it. My setup at the moment is an Ultimaker S5, which offers a simple REST-API, for example starting a job with a G-Code or UFP file. I am using the cadQuery library for creating parametrized 3d shapes and export them as a STL file. I want to use the CuraEngine CLI interface (Backend for Cura) for slicing or their library libArcus (python bindings) but there is literally no documentation or any kind of examples, except the source code. There is also the prucaSlicer, which also offers a CLI interface for creating G-Code, but no support for the Ultimaker S5.

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.