8note 5 days ago

definitely learn solidworks or something in that vein first

that, and as a prior skill, learn to draw by hand on paper orthogonal and isometric views of 3d objects.

cad is another theory building excercise, but instead of being about processes, its about objects. you want to start from a strong manual/first principles base

  • d_silin 5 days ago

    I liked CATIA, but can't afford it at the moment.

nomel 5 days ago

If you're more interested int the result than the process, Onshape or Fusion are great, free (with use restrictions) parametric CAD. And both support scripting, to some extent.

Both have really great documentation/examples.

avhon1 4 days ago

for simple learning, I invite you to consider SolveSpace

  • WillAdams 4 days ago

    Has there been any work on it to make it usable w/ touch or a stylus or a trackpad?

    I'm on the verge of breaking down and buying a license for Moment of Inspiration 3D since it was designed for use on tablet computers (which is my preferred sort of hardware).

    • avhon1 3 days ago

      To rotate the view in SolveSpace, you need any one of these:

      * a keyboard's shift key and a right mouse button, or * a middle mouse button, or * a 3D mouse.

      I've done some work in SolveSpace with a Wacom tablet, by binding the stylus's buttons to the middle and right mouse buttons. SolveSpace is a pretty simple program, so you don't need to dig deep through the UI to get to all the functions. Lost of the often-used functions have keyboard shortcuts, but I don't think there is anything that is only accessible through the keyboard.

      Depending on what you aim to do, you might be interested in keeping up with Blender's currently-in-development tablet mode:

      https://code.blender.org/2025/07/beyond-mouse-keyboard/

      • WillAdams 3 days ago

        Yeah, that's the problem --- Samsung colludes w/ Wacom to deny right-click functionality to their devices using the S-Pen --- really, really, really miss that some days.

        I'll keep experimenting w/ this in mind for the next time I'm using my Wacom One attached to my MacBook.

the__alchemist 5 days ago

Note: This is probably a dead-end; it is not on the same level as SolidWorks, Fusion etc.

  • numpad0 4 days ago

    Or Blender, pen and paper, bag of LEGO, etc. Text in context of geometric object is more or less an abstract classification tool, barely a descriptive one.

    Everyone knows what a `dice` is. But that's a taxonomical label, not a definition of one. Anyone reading this can probably draw a representative `dice` using only standard stationery supplies in under a minute. Now describe one in English with such rigor and precision that it readily translates to a .gcode file to be printed. That requires a good amount of useful neurodivergence to pull off at all.

    • WillAdams 4 days ago

      The great thing about OpenSCAD is that one can model anything which one can describe using mathematics and cubes, cylinders, spheres, and transformations/relocations of same.

      The awful thing about OpenSCAD is that what one can model is bounded by one's fluency with mathematics and one's ability to place and transform cubes, cylinders, and spheres.

  • whilenot-dev 5 days ago

    I wouldn't call a FOSS project that you compare to some 2,620 USD/year software a dead-end. It's good enough for simple modeling, especially when it comes to scripting, and has been for 10 years already.

    • dgroshev 4 days ago

      Solidworks is $48/year for hobbyists though, and Fusion is free.

  • avmich 5 days ago

    You're probably right, OpenSCAD seems to be limited both in speed and in exactness of the surfaces.

    However purely programmatic interface allows doing surprising things which might be hard to achieve with a mouse.

    • WillAdams 4 days ago

      If you're using one of the old stable builds, then the newer nightly builds are markedly faster --- hopefully there will be a new stable release presently.

  • ecto 5 days ago

    How could I make it better?

    • the__alchemist 5 days ago

      Sorry about the confusion - I'm referring to OpenSCAD; not your project.