OpenSCAD

A screenshot of the OpenSCAD GUI, the 3D view showing a simple rectangular open box. The more interesting part is the code editor though. It shows a couple of lines of python code, implying the box was not produced from a normal scad script but from this python code. The actual code shown is: from openscad import * c1 = cube([10, 20, 11], center = True) c2 = cube([8, 18, 12], center = True) box = c1 - (c2 + [0, 0, 2]) box.rotate([0, 0, 40]).show()

A little teaser?

#OpenSCAD #Python

3D printing giant things with a python jigsaw generator Automating the processes of splitting up large 3D prints into smaller parts with dovetail joins

3D printing giant things with a python jigsaw generator - calbryant.uk/blog/3d-prin...

#OpenSCAD #3dprinting

New #OpenSCAD library added to the list at openscad.org/libraries.ht... (License: CC0).

#foss #floss #3dprinting

3MF NOTE: The export uses spec conform material definitions, unfortunately some (all?) slicers use custom extensions for colors that OpenSCAD is not able to use.

More on that topic soon...

There is still a lot of work to do, but now it's possible to export/import colored model via 3MF. OFF can handle colors a bit longer already.

Screenshot exporting a file called CSG-modules.3mf as shown in the file selection dialog. In the background the colored 3D model of the example "CSG modules" is open showing the scad source code with very small font and the model explaining union/intersection and difference using green for the unioned cylinder, red and blue for the intersected cube and sphere. Between the different parts are thin black cylinders visualizing the tree nature of the operations.

Screenshot of OpenSCAD with just a single line in the editor importing a file called "CSG-modules.3mf". The result shown in the 3D view is the colored display of that model from the examples looking exactly the same as when it's generated from the example source code, including all the colors.

Over the last couple of month, people have been working on extending #OpenSCAD to finally support color for the rendered 3D meshes. not just in preview.

The base of all this is the new geometry engine Manifold, so this needs to be selected in Preferences.

Day 24 of #SCADvent opens the last door of our advent calendar and this has a Christmas tree again. We started this years series with a simple printable tree. Today we bring you a procedurally generated Christmas Tree gently swaying in the breeze.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Day 23 of #SCADvent brings some Christmas greetings and wishes a happy new year will wait for us soon.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

An OpenSCAD screenshot showing Nessie... with a red Christmas hat, complete with white pompom on top. The whole background is blue sea with some dark patches for waves. Nessie is green waving through the sea, tail, middle part of the body and head out of the water, coming from left moving to front right direction. Big red nose, maybe because it's cold (or related to Rudolph the Reindeer?). Eyes straight ahead, looking at something we can't see.

Day 22 of #SCADvent proves one thing: Nessie lives and seems to be in a Christmas mood. We just don't know where.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Day 21 of #SCADvent celebrates winter solstice with a recursive fractal star.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Day 20 of #SCADvent concludes the tutorial series with part 15. This shows one way of handling multiple parts in #OpenSCAD. Using the customizer single parts can be selected in 3d-printing orientation. Additionally there is the option to show an assembly view.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

Day 19 of #SCADvent does a deep dive into creating polygons and polyhedrons in part 14 of the tutorial. It's the most complex way of producing geometry, but gives almost unlimited power over #OpenSCAD to the user wielding math.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

Day 18 of #SCADvent lets it snow. Part 13 of the tutorial shows how to use recursive modules for creating random fractal snowflakes.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Day 17 of #SCADvent looks in part 12 of the tutorial at for() loops in more detail and explains a technique for piecewise generation of objects called chain hull.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out. This is the visualization on different ways for generating rounded rectangles, so all of the 8 screenshots except the 7th show rectangles with rounded edges just with different sizes. Screenshot 3 is a bit special as its rectangle has rounding with different radius, the one on the upper left has only half the radius of all the others and the upper right has twice the radius. The 7th screenshot shows a small polygon representing one of the rounded edges, it looks like a quarter circle arc where the two ends of the arc are also connected by a straight line.

Day 16 of #SCADvent start the last week of the tutorials. We covered the basics of #OpenSCAD in the previous two weeks so the upcoming 5 parts will focus on a couple of specific topics. Part 11 presents many different ways for generating rounded rectangles.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

A screenshot of OpenSCAD showing an interpretation of the painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. Wikipedia describes the original painting that it "portrays four people in a downtown diner late at night as viewed through the diner's large glass window. The light coming from the diner illuminates a darkened and deserted urban streetscape.". The OpenSCAD version does not have the people and lighting, but otherwise stays quite near the original showing the diner with yellow walls, the big brown counter and the bar stools lined up at big glass front.

Day 15 of #SCADvent has something very different to offer - an #OpenSCAD interpretation of "Nighthawks", an 1942 oil on canvas painting by the American artist Edward Hopper - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightha...

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

Screenshot of a Christmas bauble. The main body is a light blue sphere with a rounded grove around the equator. Embedded, while keeping the overall sphere outline, is a light brown shape of a six pointed star which is slightly twisted. From top and bottom the star shape is visible and from the side the points of the star shape show as small bridges or walls at the bottom of the groove.

Day 14 of #SCADvent gives another pause to the tutorial and has an interesting Christmas bauble created by just a couple of lines of #OpenSCAD. The calendar also has the 3MF file ready for download.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, the first showing a light brown candle holder with a ring shaped base and 3 white candles. The second shows a similar holder with a smaller diameter and 4 smaller candles. The candles have a black wick and a stylized yellow flame.

Day 13 of #SCADvent brings part 10 of the tutorial which collects the pieces introduced over the past days and combines them into a parametric model of a candle holder and includes candles in preview mode.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, the first shows two identical cubes with a spherical cutout. The second shows 3 bowls shaped like regular polygons with 5, 6 and 8 sides respectively and different wall thickness. The third shows 3 simple candle holders, in the back a small hexagonal one for a single candle, in the middle a simple one for two candles based on a short bar with cylindrical slots on each side. In front a holder for 3 candles, based on a ring having the cylindrical slots distributed evenly over the ring.

Day 12 of #SCADvent shows in part 9 of the tutorial how to define modules which are the main tool for structuring more complex models in #OpenSCAD.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, the first showing a triangle, the second a ring with a cross section matching that triangle. The third shows only a quarter of the ring. The 4th shows two halves of rings with different sized rectangular cross section sitting opposite to each other. The 5th shows two cylinders, one sitting on top of the X/Y plane, the other one centered half above and half below the X/Y plane. The 6th displays an object that has a circular bottom and a smaller elliptical top. The 7th and last one shows a bar with a rectangular cross section twisted 90 degrees along the length of the bar.

Day 11 of #SCADvent and part 8 of the tutorial shows how to bring 2D shapes into the 3D world using extrusion.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, the first 3 showing function graphs in 2D, the third resembling half of the vertical cross section of a candle. The 4th screenshot shows the candle body in white generated by rotate extruding the graph from the previous screenshot. The candle has a small black cylinder at the top as wick. The next 2 screenshots show graphs that will be used for the flame and the final two combining everything to a candle with a flame, the last one just tweaking the shape of the flame by stretching it out a bit in Z direction.

Day 10 of #SCADvent steps up the usage of math a bit demonstrating in part 7 of the tutorial how to create shape outlines based on formulas.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, the first shows the numbers 9 and 12. The second shows 3 rectangles getting smaller from front to back. The third screenshot is of a pentagon and the fourth and last one shows the text "7! = 5040".

Day 9 of #SCADvent continues the tutorial. Part 6 shows how to calculate in #OpenSCAD and introduces functions that can help writing more complex formulas and allow reuse.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

OpenSCAD screenshot of the coaster. It's base is light blue and square shaped with slightly rounded corners and a thin border. The inside is a light brown with a pattern of long slots aligned in rows horizontally but shifted from row to row.

Day 8 of #SCADvent is a parametric printable coaster.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD #3dprinting

OpenSCAD screenshot of a toy. In front is a white box with 3 cutouts in form of a rounded square, a rounded triangle and a circle. Behind that there are 3 blue objects that can fit into the cutouts, a rounded cube, a 3 sided prism with rounded edges and a cylinder also with rounded edges.

Day 7 of #SCADvent takes a break from the tutorial and brings a printable toy.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD #3dprinting

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, showing first how subtracted geometry can be made visible using the # modifier, here a cylinder is subtracted to create a hole in the cube. The modifier shows the cylinder in transparent red to make it visible. Next the ! modifier is used to comment out parts of the model, so the screenshot only shows the base plate with a sphere on top. For the % modifier, the screenshot shows a flat cuboid with 4 small transparent gray cubes in the corners. The last modifier * can be used to comment out geometry, so the screenshot only shows the remaining cylinder. The last screenshot, using 3 circles shows the effect of $fn = 5 creating a pentagon, $fa = 60 creating a hexagon and $fs = 5 creating a heptagon.

Day 6 of #SCADvent explains in part 5 of the tutorial what modifiers are, that can be useful for debugging and development and shows how the mesh resolution is controlled via the $fa, $fs and $fn special variables.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, showing first the union of a cylinder and a flat cuboid arranged like an upside down T. Next using difference there are two small holes at the side of the cuboid and a big hole through the cylinder. The third screenshot shows the intersection of a cube with a sphere producing a dice like object. The last one pictures the tree of CSG operations similar to the one shown on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_solid_geometry

Day 5 of #SCADvent finally demonstrates in part 4 of the tutorial the core feature of #OpenSCAD: Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG).

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, showing first a square in 2D being translated and later rotated, after that a sphere translated in 3D space and a rotated cylinder are shown. Last there are 2 screenshots of spheres transformed by resize() and scale() into long, flat shapes vaguely similar to a surf board.

Day 4 of #SCADvent brings part 3 of the tutorial showing how to move things around in 2D and 3D space and demonstrating some basic transformations of geometry.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD

Screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, showing the geometric primitives of OpenSCAD, square, circle, polygon, in 2D and cube, cylinder, sphere and polyhedron in 3D.

Day 3 of #SCADvent continues the tutorial by introducing the geometric primitives in #OpenSCAD.

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

Three screenshots of OpenSCAD fading in and out, showing just cubes in different sizes and position.

Day 2 of #SCADvent is the introduction for the tutorial. Hello cubes!

files.openscad.org/advent-calen...

#OpenSCAD #Tutorial

Screenshot of a simple stylized christmas tree created in OpenSCAD. It's composed of a brown cylinder as trunk and green stacked star shaped parts that are getting smaller towards the top representing the branches.

Day 1 of #SCADvent is a simple christmas tree created using a little bit of math.

#OpenSCAD #Advent #3dprinting