I think it's amazing how you can get from nothing to a fully parametric #STL of a toy screwdriver in eight lines of #Python code with #sdfCAD.
If I had tried the same in a graphical #CAD software, it'd probably taken me ages. Also, none of the buttery smooth curves the #sdf - based approach makes so easy.
Also, while in the few hours I used graphical #CAD software (#FreeCAD, #SolveSpace) I encountered numerous situations where an operation would just straight-down not work for no apparent reason (error messages, broken geometry, weird surfaces all over the place, even segfaults), I have yet to run into one in #sdfCAD. Under the hood, it's just a scalar field in 3d space. Made by math. The marching cubes (or potentiall other algorithms in the future) turns this into a rock-solid triangle mesh. 💪
Now I would like to have a 3D printer and print this propeller, to see how it works, the more I look at it the more I think there is nothing that it shouldn't work for. #3D#CAD#propeller#boat#ship#design
#3DPrinting / #CAD
Someone posted a video on YouTube that was basically "hey, if you want good cad software that isn't cloud based, doesn't have a subscription, and is affordable to hobbyists check out Alibre
Making simple #propellers for #boats has become easy, with #Plasticity3D I can make this type of basic model in about 5~10 minutes, they are not made with precision but they are fine for #3D models. #ship#CAD
A very long overdo #introduction post. Hello! I'm Zach. My primary interests are #SDR, #DSP, #FPGA design, and #GPU computing. I've been doing those for about 16 years, and constantly find holes in my knowledge... so that's fun. In real life I like #cycling and have a growing interest in #solarenergy and #ElectricVehicles. Given infinite time, I'd like to learn #CAD to justify this 3d printer I bought, as well as the infrastructure that goes into making cloud computing work. Feel free to say hi!
I forgot about BlockSCAD, which is a blockly interface to OpenSCAD you can run right in the browser. I tested it years ago when I was going to teach some kids about 3D modeling.
I made this fairly simple parametric file in OpenSCAD for people to see how I do it. I am by no means an expert, but I try to share my knowledge because the only way I've ever learned anything is because others before me shared and I was able to benefit from their knowledge.
So I've been in the 3D printing game for years and have been designing in Blender and SketchUp all my life, and I really wanted to try designing a print-in-place model.
So I thought of this idea! A tri-pod that also serves as a grip for your phone or camera. This is completely print-in-place, and you can just take it off the build plate.
The tolerances are fune tuned and really work well without having large spaces for wiggling or movement in the hinges.
Overall, I just loved the #CAD challenge, and printing on my #Creality#K1 allowed me to do rapid testing
Still rough and ready, but I think "the header image on the wiki page for Constructive Solid Geometry" makes a pretty good "hello-world" for a CAD framework
Making some excellent headway on the support ridges; the measurements are accurate to the original ZX Spectrum+ case, but I took liberties with the interval for the time being.
Well, that was rapid progress! This looks like a convincing top case for a ZX Spectrum+. Now I need to print this out on card stock and check it against the bottom shell of my Spectrum+, but until then...Lads, I'm gonna call it a night and uh, relax or something I guess?
Look, I don't know if anyone reads my posts, but I do! Sometimes I dig up things I wrote if I forget them. So it's my notebook, but you can look at it.
This time it's getting & setting the viewing angles in OpenSCAD.
(As usual, if you know more than I do please feel free to correct me!)
I'm looking at a CSG to STEP convertor[1] and ask: why not make @OpenSCAD export STEP? No need for any extra libraries, hopefully. Also, one fewer step for impedance matching. All you need is to generate hulls and minks automatically, using primitives available in STEP. Surely someone has done that before, right? Github is vast, it must be in there somewhere.
TIL that apparently @FreeCAD can be controlled entirely from Python. The Python console that shows exactly what you're doing in the GUI is absolutely sick!
So can one replay a workflow from start to finish? Does that make a FreeCAD design version-controllable? Can the Python code be streamed to file?