I want to learn OpenScad! Anyone have any tips?

I want to learn openscad - Looks scary!
I found a few tutorials, one on makerbot I'm reading now: http://www.makerbot.com/blog/tag/openscad-tutorial/

But does any one have any info or tips to help someone who has ZERO knowledge?
All of my designs are done in TinkerCAD (which I fully recommend to anyone!!).
The makerbot blog is poorly formatted. My eyes wander too often and I get side tracked.
The scad online manual is UUUUUUUGLY!

I need to use OpenScad to fix some files I'm working with and build some add-on's.

.... Secret project which I will release on here soon!

Aha!
I found one thing which is not in the tutorials! Case sensitivity! All text has to be written in lower case. If I use an upper case character or all uppercase it just fails!

Lots of videos out there on YouTube helped me. Another thing is download other scad files and study what people are doing....like "how did they do that?" Change the code and see what it does. Lastly, sometimes, you have to just jump in the water to learn how to swim. Start a small project....like building a snowman.

One would hope that a really nice lady from Texas might offer some help to we poor suffering ignoranti.

Old Man Emu

OME;

Read through your entire OpenSCAD Help Center thread last night. I ran across OpenSCAD not long ago, and being a C programmer since before the Great Flood, i was intrigued, but knew that if i got sucked into it, it could end up eating up SCADs of time (Ha! SCADs of time. Get it? Maybe not - you're from "down unda"). Anyway, i decided to scan the manual and started loading up a few .scad programs to have a look. Haven't studied that threaded screw program you posted, but saved it for later.

Got to the 'concat' function and found out it didn't work. What the...? You gotta have a concat() function, in any language. Upon further investigation it turns out that it doesn't work in the current "stable" release of 2104.03, but does work in the "development snapshot" release 2015.01.08 (scroll to bottom). This new release has a few more fixes and is prettier to boot. Recommended.

I agree with one of the guys, in the other thread, that OpenJSCAD is a better product. It can, by the way, be run locally (on your computer) as opposed to running it in the cloud. The upside is that OpenSCAD and OpenJSCAD are 90% compatible, and so most of what you learn in OpenSCAD can be transferable in the future.

Of what i know so far, i tend to agree with other critics that the language itself is a bit of a "dog's breakfast". This business of calling a translate function before the creation (instantiation) of an object seems counterintuitive. Once these foibles are accepted though, things can move ahead.

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Originally Posted by Kingoddball

I want to learn openscad - Looks scary!
...
The scad online manual is UUUUUUUGLY!

I need to use OpenScad to fix some files I'm working with and build some add-on's.

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Originally Posted by old man emu

One would hope that a really nice lady from Texas might offer some help to we poor suffering ignoranti.

Old Man Emu

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Well... The best advice is to jump in with both feet. It is a little over whelming at first. And I still can't do a lot of things the language offers like Polygons, but its amazing how simply some things can be constructed with it. With that said, I think the trick is learning what things the language naturally handles and what things are better done with other tools. That Cartoon Car is a good example. For sure, the 3D Graphics tools are better suited for that task than OpenScad.

KingOddBall: If you post the files and the changes you need, it may be simple to make the change and everybody can follow along?

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Originally Posted by truly_bent

I agree with one of the guys, in the other thread, that OpenJSCAD is a better product. It can, by the way, be run locally (on your computer) as opposed to running it in the cloud. The upside is that OpenSCAD and OpenJSCAD are 90% compatible, and so most of what you learn in OpenSCAD can be transferable in the future.

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I haven't had time to mess with it yet, but OpenJScad does look much 'cleaner'. It fixes some of the syntax issues with OpenScad and it also eliminates some of the deficiencies (like singular variable assignments). I suspect we will see OpenJScad start to replace OpenScad soon.

But don't you have to learn Java to use Openjscad?

Sounds like you'd need lashings* of extra time to master it.

OME

Lashings: English equivalent of scads

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Originally Posted by old man emu

But don't you have to learn Java to use Openjscad?

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I certainly don't know for sure. But... No... I don't think so. Looking at the instruction manual I think the J is there because the compiler is written in Java and they needed to change the name because even though it is very OpenScad 'like', it isn't OpenScad. It would be good to have somebody that is actually using it jump in and comment if what I'm saying is not true.

I've just started having a look into this:
- The OpenJsCad documentation discusses all the OpenScad functions right along with the object oriented ones. This is good for comparison and learning purposes, if you happen to already know OpenSCad. As a Solidworks user, i'm quite impressed with what OpenJsCad can do.
- Just to check, i dumped the ridged_beams.scad program (found on this page) into the OpenJsCad home page. It took longer than expected to render, but then it has to be run through a translator first. This screen grab was the result. Obviously no problem reading that file.

http://3dprintboard.com/attachment.p...tid=4312&stc=1

- I've started looking into running OpenJsCad locally (offline). I've installed Node.js on my system, which is the Java interpreter that OpenJsCad uses on their site and downloaded the OpenJsCad source code. Node.js comes with a openscad-openjscad-translator built in, so if i ever do get it operational it should have the same capabilities as the online version. By the way, the preferred browser for this is Chrome. That or Firefox (my fave) are the only two capable of running the site for now. More browsers are anticipated.

Have a look at these tutorials (all links in the beginning): http://www.tridimake.com/2014/11/how...ldren-and.html

There is a book available through Amazon called "OpenScad for 3D Printing" by Al Williams. As a newbie, I am still learning everything 3d including OpenScad and Sketchup. I found Mr. Williams book to be a big help…YMMV.

got the book. Well i say 'book' it's a very short pamphlet really.
Was it worth the couple quid I spent ?
Yeah -just, learnt a few neat things, a lot of the math was over my head. But then that doesn't matter.
There are numerous online tutorials that are probably better.

And to all you programmers complaining about the syntax - for the rest of us who aren't programmers - it's largely irrelevant. You just type the commands the way it want's them typed and it works. So what if it's different to something else ?
German is written different to english - well it would be it's a different language. Likewise openscad isn't a c-compiler. So why shouldn't it be different ?

Tried the openjscad a few times. Really don't like it. And don't need it.

And what the hell is a 'concat' command ?
And why would I need one ?

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Originally Posted by truly_bent

I've just started having a look into this:
- The OpenJsCad documentation discusses all the OpenScad functions right along with the object oriented ones. This is good for comparison and learning purposes, if you happen to already know OpenSCad. As a Solidworks user, i'm quite impressed with what OpenJsCad can do.
- Just to check, i dumped the ridged_beams.scad program (found on this page) into the OpenJsCad home page. It took longer than expected to render, but then it has to be run through a translator first. This screen grab was the result. Obviously no problem reading that file.

...

- I've started looking into running OpenJsCad locally (offline). I've installed Node.js on my system, which is the Java interpreter that OpenJsCad uses on their site and downloaded the OpenJsCad source code. Node.js comes with a openscad-openjscad-translator built in, so if i ever do get it operational it should have the same capabilities as the online version. By the way, the preferred browser for this is Chrome. That or Firefox (my fave) are the only two capable of running the site for now. More browsers are anticipated.

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I just dragged and dropped that file into the OpenJScad home page. It rendered correctly!!! I'm impressed with its Backward compatibility! It might make sense to get the Java interpreter going so I can process everything locally.

Okay. Got OpenJsCad to run locally (offline). The key was to find the right GitHub directory. You'd think there would only be one, but i somehow managed to find the wrong one first try.
1) Download zip file from here (right side of page).
2) Unzip onto your hard drive. I chose to unzip just off my root, but i'm pretty sure it doesn't matter where you put it.
3) Using Firefox or Chrome (shown below), open (ctrl 'O') and find the index.html file from the package. Double click.
4) Have fun...

http://3dprintboard.com/attachment.p...tid=4318&stc=1

Note the "file:///C:/OpenJsCad/index.html" address in the upper left corner. I dumped our ridged_beams.scad test file into it and it worked exactly as advertised.

In the course of this i did install the Java script interpreter Node.js, which turned out to be unnecessary. I may just play around with it anyway. I've always had a yen to study me some Java :)

(Edit: Not sure yet whether having Node.js installed is necessary or not. Someone else has to confirm the above steps to be sure)

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Originally Posted by truly_bent

Okay. Got OpenJsCad to run locally (offline). The key was to find the right GitHub directory. You'd think there would only be one, but i somehow managed to find the wrong one first try.
1) Download zip file from here (right side of page).
2) Unzip onto your hard drive. I chose to unzip just off my root, but i'm pretty sure it doesn't matter where you put it.
3) Using Firefox or Chrome (shown below), open (ctrl 'O') and find the index.html file from the package. Double click.
4) Have fun...



Note the "file:///C:/OpenJsCad/index.html" address in the upper left corner. I dumped our ridged_beams.scad test file into it and it worked exactly as advertised.

In the course of this i did install the Java script interpreter Node.js, which turned out to be unnecessary. I may just play around with it anyway. I've always had a yen to study me some Java :)

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THANKS FOR THE HELP! I was trying to figure out if I needed to have a Linux machine to run the local version. All of their build instructions point to it being done on Linux. But that .ZIP file is everything I needed. I just load up the Index.html file and it seems to know how to pull in all the Java stuff to do the real work!!!!

It might be a little too early to say this, but if this works as well as it appears, there may not be a reason to have OpenScad installed any more! Just playing with it in the web browser, it is so much more responsive than the rendered image in the OpenScad window!

Roxy;
Np. Do you have Node.js installed? I'm hoping for confirmation that it doesn't need to be. OpenScad still renders the .scad files quicker, i presume because the file doesn't to be translated into Java Script first. I'm running a 64 bit machine and i know that for small and rapid changes, i'd find the added delay annoying. You're right about the GUI though. It is more responsive.

This is a good solution for anyone wanting to move from a quirky port of 'C' to a proper and cleaner Oop language.
My 2 cents...

(Edit: Wait! I just realized the the right side of the screen is a text editor. That's gotta help with the speed issue.)

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Originally Posted by truly_bent

Roxy;
Np. Do you have Node.js installed? I'm hoping for confirmation that it doesn't need to be. OpenScad still renders the .scad files quicker, i presume because the file doesn't to be translated into Java Script first. I'm running a 64 bit machine and i know that for small and rapid changes, i'd find the added delay annoying. You're right about the GUI though. It is more responsive.

This is a good solution for anyone wanting to move from a quirky port of 'C' to a proper and cleaner Oop language.
My 2 cents...

(Edit: Wait! I just realized the the right side of the screen is a text editor. That's gotta help with the speed issue.)

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I installed Node.js first before I started trying to find a Windows version of the OpenJScad stuff. I suspect you need to have that but I don't know for sure. As far as speed goes, I haven't really used it yet, but OpenScad is pretty slow. It will do a best guess render pretty quickly, but to actually compile the code takes forever. I suspect this isn't going to be much worse, but once again, I don't know.

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Originally Posted by truly_bent

Roxy;

(Edit: Wait! I just realized the the right side of the screen is a text editor. That's gotta help with the speed issue.)

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How do you recompile after using that. At the moment I am editing with Gedit then reloading because I can't find how to recompile in the HTML.

Strangely when I tried it online it didn't draw my file correctly but it seems fine with the offline version.

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Originally Posted by Mjolinor

How do you recompile after using that. At the moment I am editing with Gedit then reloading because I can't find how to recompile in the HTML.

Strangely when I tried it online it didn't draw my file correctly but it seems fine with the offline version.

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So... The documentation talks about the 'Auto Reload' button. I just checked it out. I had a file open in an external text editor and also in the OpenJScad web page. As soon as I saved a change in the text editor, the web page started crunching on the design. I think it will take a little bit of use to figure everything out.

Ah. I see what's happening. The "Auto Reload" function must allow monitoring of any change in the external file and recompiling (well, re-interpreting anyway) the code as soon as it is saved back to disk.

(Edit: The OpenJsCad program doesn't render OME's screwthread file (.scad) properly. Not good news there)

(Edit: This "Auto Reload" isn't functioning i as expected. It seems to be constantly reloading/re-rendering the file. Think i'll stick to using the "Reload" button)

Albert;
Thanks for that OpenScad tutorial link. Good find.

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Originally Posted by truly_bent

(Edit: The OpenJsCad program doesn't render OME's screwthread file (.scad) properly. Not good news there)

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I just reported that bug you found. Let's see how long it takes them to get it fixed! :)

I got fed up of waiting for it to draw any of the toroid files we were messing with a few weeks ago.

I found that when i used the OpenScad difference() function, that everything disappeared. F6 worked, but that takes too long. Found this discussion on GitHub related to the problem. Turns out that i had to enable "Force Goldfeather" in the Advanced options. Everything is okay now.

Just in case someone else has this problem.

(Edit: This has nothing to do with the OpenJsCad browser program)

Turns out that Chrome has a built in Javascript debugger. Anyone who has spent hours chasing down bugs knows the value of that Godsent! The OpenJsCad peeps have thoughtfully provided a "parser" site for debugging your .jscad files. Hit Ctrl+Shift+I (that's 'I' as in "eye") in Chrome and the debugger window pops open. Dump your .jscad file into the parser window and a "Debug" button appears right next to the "Reload" button. The debugger will automatically halt one step before your Javascript main() function.
Use:
- F11 to step into a function
- F10 to step over (around) a function
- F8 to run continuously again (to end or next breakpoint)

You can set breakpoints and watch variables, like any other debugger. Isn't Goggle a great company? :o You can probably do all the same stuff in Firefox, too. I use Firebug for any Firefox debugging, but for this OpenJsCad stuff, i'm sticking with Chrome.

P.S. Does NOT work with .scad files.

Roxy;

Did the OpenJsCad people get back to you on that bug you reported about the screwthread_v2.scad file not working in the OpenJsCad interpreter? If not, i think i may have found the "bug". From the OpenJsCad manual:

"An OpenSCAD (.scad) translator & importer is included in OpenJSCAD, following features aren't working yet:
- DXF import and manipulation (e.g. import_dxf, dxf-cross, dxf_dim functions).
- rotate_extrude() (Note: OpenJSCAD supports rotate_extrude() )
- minkowski() and hull() transformations (Note: OpenJSCAD supports hull() )
- $fa, $fs global variables.
- Modifier characters: #, !, %"

Turns out that the screwthread_v2.scad program has a hull() transformation:
...
for(i=[0:step:360-step])
hull()
for(j = [0,step])
rotate([0,0,(i+j)])
translate([D_maj/2,0,(i+j)/360*P])
screwthread_triangle(P);
...

I expect the translate() function is the culprit, but it could also be the rotate(). Have to dig a little deeper to be sure.

Yes, one of the developers responded and said something similar to what you said about hull() not being fully supported in OpenScad but it is in OpenJScad. That kind of seems backwards because the code works in OpenScad, but it must have to do with the special case of the translate(). I haven't had time to take a look at it and really understand it yet.

yet another reason to avoid openjscad than. I love the hull command. You can make just about any weird shape you want with it.

I think hull() is supported. I think the issue is it doesn't have 'full' support yet. I suspect that is going to be fixed soon.

What a cracking facility hull() is, I never used it before it was mentioned here.