Playing with creating auto-dimensioned views in #OpenSCAD

Potentially useful for parametric models where certain dimensions are calculated.

#3Ddesign

Needed some small drawers to organize my desk. My printer is now churning out drawers using this parameterized #OpenScad design https://github.com/smkent/modular-drawers-gridfinity

I mention this because I was once again faced with the maddening fact that people keep designing cool "modular grid" systems, that seem needlessly incompatible with #gridfinity stuff. Mostly because the creator made a grid that was almost, but not quite the same size for no obvious reason.

🧵1/3

#3DPrinting

Serious question: Why is #OpenSCAD so damn slow?

Like, compared to literally every other 3D rendering app it's orders of magnitude slower. Things that take a second to render in any normal CAD app take minutes in OpenSCAD. I know it hasn't been updated since 2021 (i think) but still…

What's going on?

#3DPrinting

Demo for da ShadowParty 2025 : demoscad, with #openscad.

https://youtu.be/gczShjBNNsY?si=MhYPEZi__UxGszD3

Over the last few years I've built a ton of small gadgets - mostly various WiFi-based sensors based on ESP devices - but more recently BLE via nrf52840. They're all oddly-shaped, enclosure-less, and getting a little dusty.

A friend who's moving far away gifted me his 3d printer, and I immediately started learning Blender to be able to design my own things. The last time I'd used any sort of CAD was over twenty years back.

There's probably a better way to do this, but I'd been creating one rough model of each device, then a larger model representing the case, then doing a transform op to subtract one form from the other. It gets the job done, but the workflow kind of sucks - between iterations there's a lot of undoing.

Today I discovered OpenSCAD, which allows me to define the models in code - it makes it so much easier to visualize the before & after, and iterate quickly! Such a huge improvement for me.

#3dprint #blender #openscad

I've always done my 3D design in #OpenSCAD as I've previously struggled with #FreeCAD and it made sense to my programmer brain.

However, trying to design a 250g R/C plane was a real struggle, just so much work to make things accurately hollow.

So I bit the bullet and tried FreeCAD again this weekend and something clicked. I'm now really enjoying using it, particularly storing the critical dimensions in a referable spreadsheet.

Sometimes I wonder how so little can engage so much? Maybe I have a wrong mental model from Reddit or subject lines at all. The message/question seems precise and the author guides his audience and responders with easy to understand commands, like "yes" or "no" or "I just want [single word]". So in total he's using Reddit just like an AI prompt. I am somewhere between fascinated and disgusted. #Reddit #OpenSCAD #prompt

https://www.reddit.com/r/openscad/comments/1lumpdp/doubt/