Cadquery Alternatives

cadquery reviews and mentions

• Design for 3D-Printing
  5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 4 May 2025
• We are shutting down the Ondsel FreeCAD business
  7 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 18 Nov 2024

  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/

• Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS
  13 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 7 Jul 2024

  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.

• GitHub - CadQuery/cadquery: A python parametric CAD scripting framework based on OCCT
  1 project | /r/codeCAD | 26 Jul 2023
• Better OpenSCAD?
  21 projects | /r/openscad | 2 May 2023
• Best module for generate sketch
  2 projects | /r/learnpython | 24 Apr 2023

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

• Synth Printer: 3D printed synth panels with simple Python code. Give me early feedback?
  3 projects | /r/synthdiy | 13 Apr 2023

  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.

• FreeCAD Day 2023: Report and Continued Discussion
  5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 5 Feb 2023

  >Python for CAD

  You might be interested in CadQuery:

  https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery

• This subreddit now says that the Steam Deck is just a PC right when you join it. Now all of you who say that it isn't a PC can stop arguing about it
  1 project | /r/SteamDeck | 24 Jan 2023

  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.

• Pipeline to automate the process from creating 3d objects to start a print job
  6 projects | /r/3Dprinting | 12 Oct 2022

  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.

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  www.influxdata.com | 24 Jun 2025

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