Wonderful video about my favorite CAD program! There is one feature that I NEVER see anyone talking about or using in tutorial videos, and it would be VERY useful for these videos, and for every user in general. This might be the MOST useful feature of this wonderful program. Put your cursor just to the right of any digit, press and hold ALT and then press up arrow to increase that digit or down arrow to decrease. Previews will update instantly, and it makes fine adjustment SOOOO simple. If you need more precision, ALT-right will add decimal places to the number, and you will then adjust THAT digit up or down instead. ALT-left works just the way you'd think it would. This feature makes doing adjustments MUCH easier and faster. Try it, you'll soon come to depend on it!
I just "tripped" over Open Scad and it was very perplexing.. Lots of panic exists over the unknown.. You have done a huge service to maker world by doing this video! Thanks!
I discovered OpenSCAD about a month a go, and used it just to customize some Christmas tree ornaments. But now, you open new world to me. With you on my side, even code looks easy. Many many thanks and I wish you good health, and happiness to you and your family in new year.
I was ignoring scad files on thingeverse because had no idea how to use them. Now I can customize the downloaded models with ease. Thank you for very useful lesson.
Thankyou Herb! I was trying to use customizer in Thingiverse and, of course it didn't work. I thought I was doing something wrong and tried the same thing three times. I then did a search on youtube and found your video. A few minutes in SCAD and all is good, my wife is happy because the project was for her. Thanks again.
Makerbot/Stratasys should hire you. You have the enthusiasm. Thingiverse is dead to me - hasn't been much advancement since late 2017 when I started working with Makerbots. When I clicked on Explore/Cusomizable things it didn't even find your tool holder - I had to enter the thing number from your video. I have designed and printed quite a few useful but very specific things. I haven't really found anything of interest on Thingiverse since the first month or two five years ago, sorry to say. If I design anything is OpenSCAD I will upload it, though. Your enthusiasm is great, so much more can be done if they hired you.
Good evening. Happy New Year! You are an amazing teacher and an inspiration. I am a medical doctor and your lithopane technique has brought such happiness to colleagues that i have printed for them as gifts, with a spark during this covid crisis . Thank you for all your time and support effort, please keep it up. Kind regards
OpenSCAD needs some more work than most other CAD tools, but the benefit is that you can pretty much programmatically create and manipulate 3D objects using quite simple programming language. Coming from a coding background it took me a day or to to familiarize myself with the coding language and create the things I want, but I was never able to wrap my mind around the “common” CAD tools!
Having explained the basics, a mention of 'the cheat sheet' under the help tab, would get folk to the next level.I came to open scad some months ago, via a component box on thingiverse, then I came to freecad via your card file box video. When ever I'm using freecad, i think it would be easier in openscad.. The two will work together, after a fashion.
Thanks for the excellent video. I have been using Open Scad to work with the files on Thingiverse. I was not aware of the customizer option, so thanks for pointing it out. I do wish that the programs had more comments as to what the options do. Some times it is not clear as to the variables use. This will help a lot of people who are frustrated with the broken version on TV
Thank you, great video to attract people to OpenSCAD. Unfortunately, it's not even 5% of OpenSCAD capabilities. So you'll have to film a series of OpenSCAD videos. ;) P.S. Just noticed you are still using Cura 4.7. I highly recommend you to update to 4.8. They have fixed tons of slicing bugs introduced in 4.7. In general, 4.7 is the most buggy version of Cura. People rollback to 4.6 or upgrade to 4.8 in order to properly slice their models. Also, they've got ironing working fine in Cura 4.8-- great topic to review in your video. ;)
Thank you, Dr VAX, you are an excellent teacher. I've been using OpenSCAD for quite a while, but I learned about the C Language, multi-line comments and the Customizer from this video.
Thanks, such a useful video. In all the times I have tried customiser, today is the only time its ever worked. Now I no longer need it and can start to do it myself!
Hi... You are an excellent teacher, and source of positive energy. Watching your channel since some time, having experienced the pre VAX digital equipement machines (you remember the prompt 'do you want to kill your neighbour').. Maybe being older than you, I won't comment the content of your video's (excellent), but your coaching skills. You are an excellent coach, keep it up, as you emit positive energy. (and I am a atheist :-).
Thank you for putting out this video. I've been wanting to try to do some simple designs and as a hobby programmer for over 26 years this method has a much lower learning curve for me than trying to work with other CAD programs.
I do everything in OpenSCAD and I enable the customizer for the things I upload to Thingiverse, in the hope that someday it will work. But when I get a complaint that someone is unable to customize my thing, I always tell them to use OpenSCAD directly. It works much better than the online customizer. I recognize that people don't like to look at code, but I highly recommend you DON'T hide the code panel. The programmer (me, for instance) can put a lot more explanatory comments in the settings than the customizer can display. After a while, you won't bother with the customizer; you'll find that looking at the source code works better.
Dr.Vax I'm new to this channel but you do not disappoint this video is fantastic! I am a machinist and part of my job is to build models and programs with a cam software called Virtual Giggs , so seeing the break down of the code is fantasic,thanks for the video. Dave
Helpful stuff, Irv. and always love your easy-going, and practical approach. You're like having the cool neighbor next door that I can always rely on for sorting out tech issues, and in this case, the current state of 3D Printing tech... thx!
Very Well Done, Excellent video. I have been debating on which 3D printer to purchase, had one about 10 years ago and had nothing but problems with it. Got rid of it and I have been doing a lot of CNC work instead.
Interesting and well presented as always. I've been using openScad for some time but but still I never miss one of your videos. I find your presentation always enjoyable and once in a while I even learn something...
Thank you for the fun instructions Dr. Vax! I received an Ender 3 Pro for the holidays and really have had a ton of fun making things using TinkerCAD. I've played with OpenSCAD and quickly saw the potential, but your instructions have really opened my mind to new ideas. Cheers! Like+Sub.
I think it would have made more sense if you had structured the handle as a separate module, and simply combined that with the cup and subtracted. Organizing subassemblies into modules is a feature that makes OpenSCAD so powerful -- and also easier to understand the code.
This is why I migrated out of Thingiverse to MyMiniFactory. If Thingiverse was interested in fixing things, they could’ve asked for help, many engineers like myself would volunteer to fix things with their site.
As a newbie 3d printer, and as a retired programmer of 35 years, this is way cool! Thanks DrVax for the lesson. I'm assuming you can convert stl to an scad file somehow?
Openscad has an import() function, you can import many types of 3d files including stl. Personally, the home screen for my internet browser takes me to www.openscad.org/cheatsheet/ such a good reference tool
Can't blame you for liking FreeCAD, there's much to like there. I've been a programmer for over 40 years, and have only gotten proficient at 3D CAD in the last few years, so when I want something simple, OpenSCAD is just the thing, simple designs in second or minutes. When I want complex or curvy things with lots of fillets or chamfers, I use Fusion 360, and love it. Cheers!
Just a little note: Both Github and Gitlab render STL files more reliably than Thingiverse. If you've got some programming skill, you can take Thingiverse out of the equation entirely. Not just by using build scripts to introduce the parameters and run OpenSCAD renderer (say, `make`), but just include your SCAD files with the Git repository. And, of course, even better, use an entirely open source and open licensed toolchain (FOSS or FLOSS), from Linux to a friendly manufacturer or someone who distributes kits or plans (ie., not Makerbot).
I wonder why Thingiverse is so utterly broken. It’s basically unsearchable (either everything loosely related to your search terms or nothing is returned), collections are super clumsy (no in-place deleting or moving or un-collecting of things, you always need to go to the collections page, select the collection, select edit, etc.), comments are a pain in the ass with their individual page for replies to comments, the site is pretty slow sometimes … but the most important thing is - and that’s quite ironic for a website dedicated to 3D objects - their rendering of 3D objects is downright broken and annoying.
Dr. Irv - Thanks for posting his video. I never looked into OpenSCAD thinking it was too difficult. I have an older Acer laptop (2011) I am getting errors when opening a file in OpenSCAD. I get = Missing OpenGL capabilities for OpenCSG - OpenCSG has been disabled. It is highly recommended to use OpenSCAD on a system with OpenGL 2.0 or later. I tried looking up the minimum hardware requirements but I have not been able to locate. What would you recommend? I need to upgrade but not necessarily the latest expensive machine.Maybe like a 4-5 year old machine? Thanks.
Hey Doc loved the video! Can you make a video of how to remove seam using Cura? I’ve been dealing with them forever! And I can’t find a good video to help me.
Nice video. Just one thing missing, and that's how to do chamfers and fillets. I don't think this is easy to do in SCAD. Of course I'm willing to be proved wrong :-)
I'm going to buy a laptop on black Friday. Could you help me to find the cheapest one. I plan to buy a 1t external hard drive. I plan to dedicate it for 3d printing.
It makes me thinking that you could implement a compiler which will translate Python to OpenSCAD. It might be more handy to perform math, loops, and stuff using a familiar programming language.
Excellent video DrVax as usual :) Even if it is not fulle related, I take the chance to ask you about a weird behavior in Cura. I've got a .stl for an electronic card's case. When I open it in Cura everything looks fine (see box01.jpg) , I can slice it without any issue but when I preview the job the junction of the walls (corners lower part) are missing!!! (box02.jpg). In the link to my Drive, you can fins some snapshots about this matter and the original .stl file. Any lead to solve this? Thank you in advance @t
If you are more comfortable with Python than Javascript, DeclaraCAD might be more up your alley. There are other apps that use code to create structure, as well: alternativeto.net/software/declaracad/
So did I for a long time, but in a lot of cases the code is indented to help indicate the scope of operations, and you should do that yourself in your own code, it really does make things more clear. It also helps to read the lines of code BACKWARDS, left-to-right, since the thing on the far right is usually the primitive object, and everything to the right modifies THAT object in some way.
I found this video a few minutes ago, because a few minutes before that; I just lost my mind on Twitter. STL files are useless. People should be trading SCAD files out of github. The whole point of CSG is union, intersect, and difference. You must be able to import, and parameterize objects... to do everything you can do with raw cubes and spheres in OpenSCAD. I learned OpenSCAD because a blind person suggested that I start using it, because I was writing unusual braille templates. They imagine what they want to see in their mind, and write it out in code with a braille terminal hooked up to a computer. They have to print and feel things before they ever see them. I need to parameterize them for things like: braille font geometry (distance between dots, doming, assumed stylus size, 6-dot standard or 8-dot computer, row and column count, etc. At these STL-trading sites, you end up having to do useless things like make 20 STL files to capture combinations that people might use. Now, I am making iPhone cases; customized with contact information so that somebody can call somebody you know if you lose your phone. Now, I absolutely can't use STL files. I think I would have to make a web site for serving up information about the cases, letting you put in parameters, and select printer options to download STL or gcode. Now, I am thinking about making a scad file with a Marine Corps logo built into it. But there are STL files rather than scad files (version controlled in github). It's so, so useless. I want to use the logo to make an engraving. scad files are source code only, with parameter overrides. The OpenSCAD compiler can be hosted on those sites, and just not bother with STL files in cases where you are making functional objects to be imported and mashed up with other files.
Thingiverse Customizer is continuesly broken for at least 2 month or so. They even do not respond to support tickets! wonder why they do not simply remove that dummy button. Instead of fooling their users.
I started coding in 1975, a very long time ago. I haven’t spend a year since then without coding. At this point I get me enjoyment out of teaching about coding and hope to add tutorials about Python onto the channel if I ever get the time.
@@MakeWithTech (I'm replying here because you didn't make a comment of your own that others can reply to--hint, hint) I really appreciate how gently you taught this. I'll be sure to pass your video along. 1. '//*/' is a *VERY* useful tool for block comments. As is, it will close a block automatically and doesn't cause a problem if the opening '/*' isn't there. As well, by just removing one of the first slashes, you get '/*/' which will be seen as '/*'. Thus you can toggle a block as needed by deleting or inserting a single slash at its beginning. 2. Here is my default header which includes a number of helpful functions/etc.: pastebin.com/VSYNsd54 I hope that this helps!
Oh, wow, I had NO idea that Thingiverse's customizer was OpenSCAD! Yet another reason to learn to use it.
Wonderful video about my favorite CAD program!
There is one feature that I NEVER see anyone talking about or using in tutorial videos, and it would be VERY useful for these videos, and for every user in general. This might be the MOST useful feature of this wonderful program.
Put your cursor just to the right of any digit, press and hold ALT and then press up arrow to increase that digit or down arrow to decrease. Previews will update instantly, and it makes fine adjustment SOOOO simple. If you need more precision, ALT-right will add decimal places to the number, and you will then adjust THAT digit up or down instead. ALT-left works just the way you'd think it would.
This feature makes doing adjustments MUCH easier and faster. Try it, you'll soon come to depend on it!
OpenSCAD is a great idea and a program! It deserves much more attention, than it gets for now.
I just "tripped" over Open Scad and it was very perplexing.. Lots of panic exists over the unknown.. You have done a huge service to maker world by doing this video! Thanks!
I discovered OpenSCAD about a month a go, and used it just to customize some Christmas tree ornaments. But now, you open new world to me. With you on my side, even code looks easy. Many many thanks and I wish you good health, and happiness to you and your family in new year.
I was ignoring scad files on thingeverse because had no idea how to use them. Now I can customize the downloaded models with ease. Thank you for very useful lesson.
Thankyou Herb! I was trying to use customizer in Thingiverse and, of course it didn't work. I thought I was doing something wrong and tried the same thing three times. I then did a search on youtube and found your video. A few minutes in SCAD and all is good, my wife is happy because the project was for her. Thanks again.
Makerbot/Stratasys should hire you. You have the enthusiasm. Thingiverse is dead to me - hasn't been much advancement since late 2017 when I started working with Makerbots. When I clicked on Explore/Cusomizable things it didn't even find your tool holder - I had to enter the thing number from your video. I have designed and printed quite a few useful but very specific things. I haven't really found anything of interest on Thingiverse since the first month or two five years ago, sorry to say. If I design anything is OpenSCAD I will upload it, though. Your enthusiasm is great, so much more can be done if they hired you.
Good evening. Happy New Year! You are an amazing teacher and an inspiration. I am a medical doctor and your lithopane technique has brought such happiness to colleagues that i have printed for them as gifts, with a spark during this covid crisis . Thank you for all your time and support effort, please keep it up. Kind regards
OpenSCAD needs some more work than most other CAD tools, but the benefit is that you can pretty much programmatically create and manipulate 3D objects using quite simple programming language. Coming from a coding background it took me a day or to to familiarize myself with the coding language and create the things I want, but I was never able to wrap my mind around the “common” CAD tools!
Having explained the basics, a mention of 'the cheat sheet' under the help tab, would get folk to the next level.I came to open scad some months ago, via a component box on thingiverse, then I came to freecad via your card file box video. When ever I'm using freecad, i think it would be easier in openscad.. The two will work together, after a fashion.
Great idea.
Thanks for the excellent video. I have been using Open Scad to work with the files on Thingiverse. I was not aware of the customizer option, so thanks for pointing it out. I do wish that the programs had more comments as to what the options do. Some times it is not clear as to the variables use. This will help a lot of people who are frustrated with the broken version on TV
Thank you, great video to attract people to OpenSCAD. Unfortunately, it's not even 5% of OpenSCAD capabilities. So you'll have to film a series of OpenSCAD videos. ;)
P.S. Just noticed you are still using Cura 4.7. I highly recommend you to update to 4.8. They have fixed tons of slicing bugs introduced in 4.7. In general, 4.7 is the most buggy version of Cura. People rollback to 4.6 or upgrade to 4.8 in order to properly slice their models. Also, they've got ironing working fine in Cura 4.8-- great topic to review in your video. ;)
Thank you, Dr VAX, you are an excellent teacher. I've been using OpenSCAD for quite a while, but I learned about the
C Language, multi-line comments and the Customizer from this video.
Very nice step-by-step presentation. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, such a useful video. In all the times I have tried customiser, today is the only time its ever worked. Now I no longer need it and can start to do it myself!
Thanks for a comprehensive tutorial. This helps me a lot.
Thank you .. cant get my head on coding for drawing ... but because of you .. i will give it a try ... thanks
Late to the party. Love your teaching style.
Good to see you back you look much better than last time (video after your recovery from COVID)
Thank you I enjoy learning things together, God Bless You!
Thanks for watching. Happy New Year
Thank you DrVax. I love the pace and careful (but not patronising) description of what you are doing.
Hi... You are an excellent teacher, and source of positive energy.
Watching your channel since some time, having experienced the pre VAX digital equipement machines (you remember the prompt 'do you want to kill your neighbour').. Maybe being older than you, I won't comment the content of your video's (excellent), but your coaching skills. You are an excellent coach, keep it up, as you emit positive energy. (and I am a atheist :-).
Thank you for putting out this video. I've been wanting to try to do some simple designs and as a hobby programmer for over 26 years this method has a much lower learning curve for me than trying to work with other CAD programs.
I do everything in OpenSCAD and I enable the customizer for the things I upload to Thingiverse, in the hope that someday it will work. But when I get a complaint that someone is unable to customize my thing, I always tell them to use OpenSCAD directly. It works much better than the online customizer. I recognize that people don't like to look at code, but I highly recommend you DON'T hide the code panel. The programmer (me, for instance) can put a lot more explanatory comments in the settings than the customizer can display. After a while, you won't bother with the customizer; you'll find that looking at the source code works better.
Bump speed to at least 1.25. Thanks me later.
Great content. Learned something today.
Dr.Vax I'm new to this channel but you do not disappoint this video is fantastic! I am a machinist and part of my job is to build models and programs with a cam software called Virtual Giggs , so seeing the break down of the code is fantasic,thanks for the video. Dave
Great video. Opened my SCAD and followed along. I have only used SCAD a couple times and this video helped. Thanks DrVax!
really helpful and let me just add you are vary good at teaching
Helpful stuff, Irv. and always love your easy-going, and practical approach. You're like having the cool neighbor next door that I can always rely on for sorting out tech issues, and in this case, the current state of 3D Printing tech... thx!
Very Well Done, Excellent video. I have been debating on which 3D printer to purchase, had one about 10 years ago and had nothing but problems with it. Got rid of it and I have been doing a lot of CNC work instead.
Happy New Year! Thanks for teaching us new things...
My pleasure. It work for both me and my viewers as I enjoy teaching.
@11:45 "How do these scales translate?" Dr. Vax, you are one awesome guy!
This is great. I’ll be able to make so many things with this. Thank you
Thank you Dr. Vax, I have learned so much from your excellent videos.
Interesting and well presented as always. I've been using openScad for some time but but still I never miss one of your videos. I find your presentation always enjoyable and once in a while I even learn something...
Thank you for the fun instructions Dr. Vax! I received an Ender 3 Pro for the holidays and really have had a ton of fun making things using TinkerCAD. I've played with OpenSCAD and quickly saw the potential, but your instructions have really opened my mind to new ideas. Cheers! Like+Sub.
Thanks! That was awesome. I tried to use the customizer but it always seemed broken. This is great. Thanks again!
Dr Vax, great job and video, it was really interesting and this is much more than a workaround to the issue Thingiverse has.
I love your videos, because you explain things very well, even a beginner could understand
Thank you for this video, it turn out to be a great introduction to openscad.
Great job explaining this. I had no idea this existed.
Very informative as always! Thank you!
This is the exact video I was looking for. Thank you for sharing
this video was exactly what i needed! thank you
Man! I love your videos.
Brilliant.. It's just what I need it, thanks a lot.
The attitude at Thingiverse is like: If it's broken, why fix it?
I wish another company would take it over and revert back to a couple of years ago,
Im looking forward to cadhub, maybe it can be a better home for cadecad models atleast
I think it would have made more sense if you had structured the handle as a separate module, and simply combined that with the cup and subtracted. Organizing subassemblies into modules is a feature that makes OpenSCAD so powerful -- and also easier to understand the code.
Irv, you are amazing :-) Just few moments ago i started to look how learn to do this :-)
OpenSCAD is awesome!
This is why I migrated out of Thingiverse to MyMiniFactory. If Thingiverse was interested in fixing things, they could’ve asked for help, many engineers like myself would volunteer to fix things with their site.
As a newbie 3d printer, and as a retired programmer of 35 years, this is way cool! Thanks DrVax for the lesson. I'm assuming you can convert stl to an scad file somehow?
Openscad has an import() function, you can import many types of 3d files including stl.
Personally, the home screen for my internet browser takes me to www.openscad.org/cheatsheet/ such a good reference tool
Very thankyou! Is a big idea!
I started using OpenSCAD when I got my 3D printer and it worked quite well. Only compared to FreeCAD it is terribly slow and cumbersome.
Can't blame you for liking FreeCAD, there's much to like there. I've been a programmer for over 40 years, and have only gotten proficient at 3D CAD in the last few years, so when I want something simple, OpenSCAD is just the thing, simple designs in second or minutes. When I want complex or curvy things with lots of fillets or chamfers, I use Fusion 360, and love it. Cheers!
Just a little note: Both Github and Gitlab render STL files more reliably than Thingiverse. If you've got some programming skill, you can take Thingiverse out of the equation entirely. Not just by using build scripts to introduce the parameters and run OpenSCAD renderer (say, `make`), but just include your SCAD files with the Git repository.
And, of course, even better, use an entirely open source and open licensed toolchain (FOSS or FLOSS), from Linux to a friendly manufacturer or someone who distributes kits or plans (ie., not Makerbot).
Interesting. I will give it a try.
I wonder why Thingiverse is so utterly broken.
It’s basically unsearchable (either everything loosely related to your search terms or nothing is returned), collections are super clumsy (no in-place deleting or moving or un-collecting of things, you always need to go to the collections page, select the collection, select edit, etc.), comments are a pain in the ass with their individual page for replies to comments, the site is pretty slow sometimes
… but the most important thing is - and that’s quite ironic for a website dedicated to 3D objects - their rendering of 3D objects is downright broken and annoying.
wonderful!
Happy New Year
great video interesting
Dr. Irv - Thanks for posting his video. I never looked into OpenSCAD thinking it was too difficult. I have an older Acer laptop (2011) I am getting errors when opening a file in OpenSCAD.
I get = Missing OpenGL capabilities for OpenCSG - OpenCSG has been disabled.
It is highly recommended to use OpenSCAD on a system with OpenGL 2.0 or later.
I tried looking up the minimum hardware requirements but I have not been able to locate.
What would you recommend? I need to upgrade but not necessarily the latest expensive machine.Maybe like a 4-5 year old machine?
Thanks.
I looking into releasing an online version of OpenSCAD so keep watching.
@@MakeWithTech Ok, wow. That's great.
Hey Doc loved the video! Can you make a video of how to remove seam using Cura? I’ve been dealing with them forever! And I can’t find a good video to help me.
Nice video. Just one thing missing, and that's how to do chamfers and fillets. I don't think this is easy to do in SCAD. Of course I'm willing to be proved wrong :-)
You are correct. However libraries you include in your code can make this easier.
I'm going to buy a laptop on black Friday. Could you help me to find the cheapest one. I plan to buy a 1t external hard drive. I plan to dedicate it for 3d printing.
Sorry this is not my expertise.
It makes me thinking that you could implement a compiler which will translate Python to OpenSCAD. It might be more handy to perform math, loops, and stuff using a familiar programming language.
'Twas indeed interesting.
the code reminds me of pcdemis for cmm machines.
I would like to see some videos on Alibre Atom3D
Excellent video DrVax as usual :)
Even if it is not fulle related, I take the chance to ask you about a weird behavior in Cura. I've got a .stl for an electronic card's case. When I open it in Cura everything looks fine (see box01.jpg) , I can slice it without any issue but when I preview the job the junction of the walls (corners lower part) are missing!!! (box02.jpg).
In the link to my Drive, you can fins some snapshots about this matter and the original .stl file.
Any lead to solve this? Thank you in advance
@t
What about TinkerCAD...it's user Friendly...you can create your own 3D Models and Export them as an *.STL
You are correct. I have covered Thinkercad extensively on the channel.
Openscad.appimage goes to error 404.
Regular install works in Ubuntu.
Thanks for sharing. This will be helpful for my Linux viewers.
👍👍😎👍👍
The search bar stopped working I was like
BASURDA
If you are more comfortable with Python than Javascript, DeclaraCAD might be more up your alley. There are other apps that use code to create structure, as well: alternativeto.net/software/declaracad/
I like openSCAD except the scripts I find are hard to decipher.
So did I for a long time, but in a lot of cases the code is indented to help indicate the scope of operations, and you should do that yourself in your own code, it really does make things more clear. It also helps to read the lines of code BACKWARDS, left-to-right, since the thing on the far right is usually the primitive object, and everything to the right modifies THAT object in some way.
I found this video a few minutes ago, because a few minutes before that; I just lost my mind on Twitter. STL files are useless. People should be trading SCAD files out of github. The whole point of CSG is union, intersect, and difference. You must be able to import, and parameterize objects... to do everything you can do with raw cubes and spheres in OpenSCAD. I learned OpenSCAD because a blind person suggested that I start using it, because I was writing unusual braille templates. They imagine what they want to see in their mind, and write it out in code with a braille terminal hooked up to a computer. They have to print and feel things before they ever see them. I need to parameterize them for things like: braille font geometry (distance between dots, doming, assumed stylus size, 6-dot standard or 8-dot computer, row and column count, etc. At these STL-trading sites, you end up having to do useless things like make 20 STL files to capture combinations that people might use.
Now, I am making iPhone cases; customized with contact information so that somebody can call somebody you know if you lose your phone. Now, I absolutely can't use STL files. I think I would have to make a web site for serving up information about the cases, letting you put in parameters, and select printer options to download STL or gcode.
Now, I am thinking about making a scad file with a Marine Corps logo built into it. But there are STL files rather than scad files (version controlled in github). It's so, so useless. I want to use the logo to make an engraving. scad files are source code only, with parameter overrides. The OpenSCAD compiler can be hosted on those sites, and just not bother with STL files in cases where you are making functional objects to be imported and mashed up with other files.
I think STL itself is why people are printing dragons and boats for overhang stunt prints, rather than starting with modeling problem solutions.
I often find myself using this trick as almost nothing on thingiverse is of any use to me in its intended form.
Yep. Let's hope Thingiverse gets fixed before long. Either way I like using the OpenSCAP environment.
Thingiverse was working a lot better before Makerbot took over, at least overtly took over.
i suggest using free onshape. best free cad ever! and using variables users would only have to change the variables to change sizes etc.
why not just use 3d builder ?
A cube has always equal dimensions. A cube with less height would be a quader.
Thingiverse Customizer is continuesly broken for at least 2 month or so. They even do not respond to support tickets! wonder why they do not simply remove that dummy button. Instead of fooling their users.
me quedo con tinkercad :p
Be careful, opening a can of worms. You are heading towards being a coding/math teacher.
I started coding in 1975, a very long time ago. I haven’t spend a year since then without coding. At this point I get me enjoyment out of teaching about coding and hope to add tutorials about Python onto the channel if I ever get the time.
@@MakeWithTech (I'm replying here because you didn't make a comment of your own that others can reply to--hint, hint)
I really appreciate how gently you taught this. I'll be sure to pass your video along.
1. '//*/' is a *VERY* useful tool for block comments. As is, it will close a block automatically and doesn't cause a problem if the opening '/*' isn't there. As well, by just removing one of the first slashes, you get '/*/' which will be seen as '/*'. Thus you can toggle a block as needed by deleting or inserting a single slash at its beginning.
2. Here is my default header which includes a number of helpful functions/etc.: pastebin.com/VSYNsd54
I hope that this helps!
I think naming software open ass CAD was questionable choice.
I feel FreeCad is much better
I use mattercontrol, thinkercad, freeacad and openscad depending on my model needs.
Thingiverse's grossly incompetent programming for their search engine, is what's hideously broken
fyi... it's pronounced "Open-Ess-Cad".... not "OpenSKAD"
Thanks.