Make:Seattle/Eastside - the Emerald City makers

OpenSCAD (no, it's not a dance move) and InkScape

November 10, 2012 · 10:30 AM
StudentRND

We start all of our meetings with "Show and Tell" so if you have anything you'd like to share or talk about, please do so!

Then Austin will lead a little workshop showing us how to use OpenSCAD (3D parametric modeling), and InkScape (2D design tool).

Install Inkscape version 48.2. Downloads are found at http://inkscape.org/download/?lang=en. Windows users can find a windows installer at http://sourceforge.net/projects/inkscape/files/.

Install OpenSCAD version 2011.12. Downloads are found at http://www.OpenSCAD.org. Windows installer can be found at https://github.com/downloads/brad/openscad/openscad-2011.12.win32-installer.exe.

My best recommendation for anyone who's interested in continuing to learn Inkscape and OpenSCAD after the workshop is to try out these tutorials, and from there to create something! It doesn't have to be functional or beautiful, in fact, I recommend something whimsical to start. :)

Well-illustrated tutorial for learning Inkscape:

http://wiki.evilmadscience.com/Drawing_a_smiley_face

Fantastic OpenSCAD tutorials covering all the essential features:

http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/01/28/open-scad-tutorial-roundup/

OpenSCAD Language and 2D-subsystem reference:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/The_OpenSCAD_Language

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Using_the_2D_Subsystem

Guide to converting Inkscape drawings into OpenSCAD-usable DXF files:

http://repraprip.blogspot.com/2011/05/inkscape-to-openscad-dxf-tutorial.html

And as a cherry on top, Notepad++, which is an excellent free and powerful text editor that happens to work very well for editing OpenSCAD files (at least, much better than OpenSCAD's built in text editor):

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.2.html

http://curriculum.makerbot.com/2011/openscad_editor.html

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Polymorph

Where's that eBay link for the optoisolated relays and the PID temperature controllers?

0 · November 11
- John E
  
  http://www.ebay.com/i...
  
  0 · November 11
- John E
  
  (has 1,2,4,8 relay options). Found it searching "buyincoins" and "relay". FWIW if you only need only one I have a 4 relay equivalent (Olimex PIC dev board) for free.
  
  0 · November 11
Austin Spafford

Thank you to everyone that attended!

As I mentioned during the workshop/demo, links to the Inkscape and OpenSCAD tutorials are in the meeting description, along with many other resources. They're how I got started, and I really do think they're strong launch-points. :)

Also, I'm thinking of starting up "exercises" with these tools, maybe using the meetup forums or Thingiverse-things to allow people to post their results. Does that sound appealing to any of you as encouragement to try out the tools? If not, can you think of any other motivations for using the tools, such as machine-operation demos during show-and-tell?

0 · November 11
Kyle Roe

It was good to meet up with the group again. Thank you to Austin for teaching us some of the in's and out's of Inkscape and OpenSCAD.

0 · November 10
Craig Zupke

Remember that we start all of our meetings with "Show and Tell" so if you have anything you'd like to share or talk about, please feel free to do so. Think projects (in progress or completed), cool toys/tools, interesting parts or materials, etc..

0 · November 9
Julyah

Is there a specific version you would like for us to have downloaded and installed before the meeting?

0 · November 4
- Dan Tebbs
  
  Yes, I will update the main meeting description.
  
  0 · November 4
- Julyah
  
  Thank you!
  
  0 · November 5
Mark Kenworthy

Is it appropriate to bring 3D printers to this meeting? Thought I could bring the R2 with me...

0 · November 2
- Polymorph
  
  I can't imagine anyone saying no to that.
  
  0 · November 2
- Craig Zupke
  
  I concur. Everyone should always feel free to bring projects, equipment, tools, materials. No guarantee you'll get a lot of attention, depending on what else is going on, but if you are willing to haul it there nobody will stop you. And, in the case of a new R2, there will probably be lots of people interested in seeing it.
  
  0 · November 2
Mark Kenworthy

OpenSCAD looks interesting. Actually I think the cool tool is InkScape, and OpenSCAD is just a way to create a 2D solid from a 2D drawing. Going beyond that with OpenSCAD might be a fun challenge, but I found this blog posting compelling: http://www.onshoulders.org/2012.... For folks that want to make 3D models that are more than 2D extrusions and can't justify SolidWorks, I've heard good things about Alibre Design. Looks pretty similar to SolidWorks in the way design is done in that tool.

0 · October 16
- View all 7 replies
- Austin Spafford
  
  Mark, it definitely depends on what you sort of design you want to make.
  
  0 · October 16
- Austin Spafford
  
  Curse Meetup's treatment of the Enter key! Like I was saying, I think OpenSCAD is the most useful when you suspect you might want to make design adjustments, say for interlocking pieces, interacting with other objects that may vary (eg. circuit board thickness and glow stick curvature/comfort), and in general for making the work you've done usable by other people (eg. my making new parts that fit Emmett's puzzle-base). Also, the posted scripts on that site have absolutely packed formatting full of magic numbers that's nearly impossible to read. No wonder he had a difficult time writing/tweaking it! I will definitely dedicate some time to recommended spread-out formatting and liberal use of names to try to help people create legible scripts, and absolutely cover the debug markups ($ for disable, % for "ghost", # for highlight, and color() for... color). Mark, thank you for posting the link!
  
  0 · October 16
- Craig Zupke
  
  I would echo Austin's comments. While I really like designing in more of a WYSIWYG way (say in Sketchup, Blender, or (I imagine) SolidWorks), having good parametric designs is very cool. I haven't checked it out yet, but FreeCAD is another parametric CAD program which uses Python scripting. I don't know if he is still pursuing it, but Mike Payton (the MendelMax designer) had originally used Allibre and then put a bunch of effort into getting the parts parametized in FreeCAD. The goal was to be able to specify a custom set of dimensions for a printer and have all of the properly sized and shaped parts be generated.
  
  0 · October 16
- Mark Kenworthy
  
  Mike's goal of a dimension driven design would have been straightforward in SolidWorks. Like I said, what you are trying to do drives the tool you should use. I think most people would have difficultly doing much more than extrusions of 2D shapes in OpenSCAD. Any tool is going to take an investment of time to learn how to use it well, but even if I became an expert in OpenSCAD, there's no way I'd use a tool like that to tackle the parts I design in SolidWorks. It takes a task that is easy in a tool like SolidWorks and turns it into a demanding and difficult venture. I think that's what the guy with the robot dog was pointing out, although he came at it from the other direction.
  
  0 · October 16
- Austin Spafford
  
  Fair enough! All that said, I'm actually interested in learning SolidWorks, and didn't realize it had parametric-model capabilities. In any case, Inkscape is an excellent tool to cover because it's powerful (and free!) tool for 2D CNC machines (laser cutters, vinyl cutters, eggbots).
  
  0 · October 16
- Mark Kenworthy
  
  Yes, Inkscape looks pretty cool. SolidWorks (and Alibre) are both parametric modelling packages. SolidWorks allows you to use an Excel spreadsheet to drive dimension parameters, which is great for creating a series of similar parts, or easily tweaking a design (like Mike's goal). I've only used that feature a couple times, but it is good to have when needed. Typically I'll just copy the entire file and then tweak whatever parameters I need to change to modify the 3D design. Also, the parameters used to define a part in SolidWorks can be an equation that uses things like other dimensions in the model. It is quite flexible.
  
  0 · October 16
- Craig Zupke
  
  I imagine that a big part of the motivation for using tools like OpenSCAD, FreeCAD, and (to a lesser extent) Sketchup are that they are multi-platform and free. If you want to share your designs and chose a commercial and/or limited platform application, then you'd only reach a fraction of the potential population.
  
  0 · October 16
Polymorph

I understand OpenSCAD is a good tool for making gear teeth?

0 · October 14
- View all 3 replies
- Roy Avery
  
  Why yes it does! http://www.thingivers... and http://www.thingivers... to name a few.
  
  0 · October 14
- Polymorph
  
  Nice!
  
  0 · October 14
- Polymorph
  
  Steampunk! I'm tired of seeing static steampunk props. I'm building a device to put out puffs of "steam"
  
  0 · October 14
Austin Spafford

Oh boy! I wasn't originally thinking I would fit both tools into one workshop, but I could see maybe presenting OpenSCAD basics (maybe doing the SketchUp spool?), then Inkscape basics for an organic design (improv?), and then back to OpenSCAD to show extruding from 2D to 3D.

Maybe it'd also be possible to squeeze in showing the 2D design being plotted onto a ping pong ball (edge-only drawings are quick to plot). I suppose I can bring the eggbot regardless, and see if people are interested. :)

0 · October 13
Michael Jones

Is there any interest in a 2d vinyl cutter to go with the 2d Inkscape?

0 · October 13
Roy Avery

Austin, definitely include something like example #9! It actually extrudes individual layers of a DXF into a complex 3D model.

0 · October 13

OpenSCAD (no, it's not a dance move) and InkScape

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Mark Kenworthy +1

Julyah +1

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