cadquery VS SolidPython

For decades, Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software has relied on graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for creating 3D models. While powerful, these tools often present limitations for automation, version control, and complex parametric design. The typical workflow involves manually creating features, applying constraints, and managing relationships - a process that can be time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to scale. Many organizations have found that maintaining a history of design changes and adapting models to new requirements can become a significant bottleneck. This is where CadQuery enters the picture, offering a fundamentally different approach.

- CadQuery (https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery/)

Having played around with this a bit, I recommend using https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery as the CAD language instead. I'm pretty sure it could even transpile to OnShape / Solidworks models as well, though it might require some funky hacks with their extensions frameworks

Could you please elaborate on how this is different than the other python based modeling tools - build123d[0] and CadQuery[1].

I recently also got annoyed with OpenSCAD and its limitations and therefore started experimenting with Build123d. I'm very much a beginner in the CAD space and would love to understand what inspired you to build sdf.

My basic understanding is that STL files are essentially like Bitmap images and store a list of triangles and their positions, whereas STEP files are more like Vector art where there is a list of instructions on how to build the model. Most CAD GUI programs also operate on a similar model to vector art where they record a list of operations one on top of another. It's why STEP files are a standardized format and can be imported / exported from most GUI based CAD builders. I think.

Given that SDF also seems like it builds only STL files (I could be wrong), wouldn't learning build123d or CadQuery work better if one cares about compatibility with existing GUI based CAD modeling software?

[0] - https://github.com/gumyr/build123d

[1] - https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery

Keep in mind that OpenSCAD doesn't support exporting .step files. Ticket to add support has been open for a long time but it's a hard to implement.

https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery is much more capable in that regards. It's based on more capable Open CASCADE Technology and Freecad also uses it.

As for use cases, the only viable use case I see is to ask it to make a model based on a picture. Or ask it to fix the topological error. In other cases it's much faster to model than to describe it to agent

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.

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.