The Orb: a parametric trackball with BTU mounted ball and keyboard switches for buttons

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on /r/ErgoMechKeyboards

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  • orb-trackball

    A parametric optical trackball device

  • The Orb is a trackball, designed from scratch with a PMW3389 optical sensor, BTU mounts for the ball and Kailh Choc switches for the buttons. It's rather compact, so it doesn't have any separate wheels, but a key can be assigned to turn the ball into a set of high resolution wheels, for the horizontal and vertical directions. Apart from that, it also features a micro-USB port, so you can use whatever length cable suits your needs. See the project page for more information, including some building instructions, if you want to make one yourself and a few more photos.

  • gamma

    A multi-language computational geometry compiler (by dpapavas)

  • The Orb was designed as a relatively complex application that could drive the development of Gamma, which, for lack of better terms, I will describe as a multi-language compiler collection for computational geometry. You write programs in one of the support languages (currently Scheme and Lua) and it produces geometry. If you're into designing stuff and have some programming skills, have a look at the project page for more details.

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    The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

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  • lagrange-keyboard

    A configurable, handwired, ergonomic keyboard

  • As for Gamma: I wasn't really aware of CadQuery, but I did use OpenSCAD extensively, when designing my Lagrange keyboard. Gamma started as a way to address some aspects I didn't find quite satisfactory (as, to be fair, I can't say I had any real problems). Also to be fair, I used OpenSCAD through a frontend(scad-clj) translating Clojure code to its native language and some of the problems may have been due to that, but that is also one of the issues I had with OpenSCAD: why have to learn a new language when there are existing embedabble scripting languages, you might now already, of if not, which you might use elsewhere and which, having years of development, will likely be better?

  • scad-clj

    OpenSCAD DSL in Clojure

  • As for Gamma: I wasn't really aware of CadQuery, but I did use OpenSCAD extensively, when designing my Lagrange keyboard. Gamma started as a way to address some aspects I didn't find quite satisfactory (as, to be fair, I can't say I had any real problems). Also to be fair, I used OpenSCAD through a frontend(scad-clj) translating Clojure code to its native language and some of the problems may have been due to that, but that is also one of the issues I had with OpenSCAD: why have to learn a new language when there are existing embedabble scripting languages, you might now already, of if not, which you might use elsewhere and which, having years of development, will likely be better?

  • CGal

    The public CGAL repository, see the README below

  • But I doubt any of this will ever run on the GPU... Multi-threading on the other hand, is already implemented and it works on the Gamma side, but I had to switch it off by default because CGAL doesn't seem to be there yet (see here for more). It does mostly work though, at least for the polyhedral operation which is what matters, although it may not be the great speed-up you expect it to be.

  • curv

    Discontinued a language for making art using mathematics

  • curv seems to have cad/slicer integration in mind as a long term goal, using f-rep to generate infill as well as the shape itself.

  • fornjot

    Early-stage b-rep CAD kernel, written in the Rust programming language.

  • also it's to early to be off much use to you, but have you heard of https://www.fornjot.app/ ? it's a very in development cad kernel that is also aiming for integration into multiple host languages.

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NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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