{"id":924,"date":"2020-11-09T07:45:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robotsbench.com\/?p=924"},"modified":"2022-03-14T12:09:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T17:09:00","slug":"quick-introduction-to-openscad-for-3d-printing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robotsbench.com\/quick-introduction-to-openscad-for-3d-printing\/","title":{"rendered":"A quick introduction to OpenSCAD for 3D printing"},"content":{"rendered":"
I’ve purchased an Ender 3 Pro <\/a>3D printer some time ago, but I only did a few demos prints at the time. I didn’t know where to start designing my own models, so the printer sat there collecting dust. The whole process of learning to model just to create a custom print sounded like a pretty big project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I came back to it when I learned about some cool rooting balls for my gardening projects that were not available locally. Instead of buying them online, I started browsing Thingiverse a bit, but they were not the right size for what I wanted to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the shape was pretty easy, an empty sphere with an opening, I decided to bite the bullet and get around to it. I tried a few traditional drawing tools and it wouldn’t stick, but then I came across OpenSCAD. It’s a modeling tool that uses code to describe the object instead of drawing around with the mouse, which sounded perfect for a developer. I was a bit doubtful at first with the simple interface; it sounded too good to be true but I’m now hooked and keep drawing new projects!<\/p>\n\n\n\n This introduction will show you how to get started drawing your own 3D models with OpenSCAD. I will only show you the parts of the language that I believe are essential to get started quickly so you can print your own custom project in a few hours. The complete documentation at https:\/\/en.wikibooks.org\/wiki\/OpenSCAD_User_Manual\/The_OpenSCAD_Language<\/a> is also very good once you have played around with the software a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keep it mind that this tool is only to draw the 3D shape you want to print. To prepare the shape so it can be sent to a 3D printer, you need to import it in a slicer afterwards. I use the excellent slicer Cura for this, which has more options than the one that came with the printer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OpenSCAD doesn’t require a lot of boilerplate. The minimal project is:<\/p>\n\n\n\nDrawing 3D Shapes – Cube<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
cube();<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n