I saw OpenSCAD mentioned in another HN comment, and thought it looked interesting. I was wondering though:

How does OpenSCAD compare to other free CAD programs like FreeCAD? Is it just that it's more focused on programming?

The primary difference: You don't drag stuff around to create your models. You write code for it. Now, you can import existing models for a variety of formats, then move them around (with transforms, still in code). It's more like POV-Ray, for instance, than Blender.

Also interested in this as someone who is looking to make some 3d printed prototypes just as a hobbyist (i.e. I have an idea and a drawing on paper and I just want to draw it up in a CAD program)

If OpenSCAD isn't powerful enough for you, there's a Clojure wrapper that lets you leverage Clojure to generate SCAD code: https://github.com/farrellm/scad-clj. OpenSCAD automatically re-renders the model when the file changes on disk, so you can essentially have a 3D modeling REPL with this setup.

> OpenSCAD automatically re-renders the model when the file changes on disk, so you can essentially have a 3D modeling REPL with this setup.

I love this feature of OpenSCAD. I've tried 3d modeling tools in the past, they just don't work for me. But code, I can do that. With a Mac Mini hooked up to my TV (primarily for watching videos, listening to music) I ssh into it and edit the files with emacs, and every save I get an updated view. I need to take a look at this clojure wrapper, however. I'm not hugely familiar with clojure, but CL and scheme I've got so it shouldn't take me long.

OP here. Lemme know if there's other topics on OpenSCAD that you'd like to see and read about.

It it possible to create animations also with OpenSCAD?

It is, though it's usually not used for figure animation, but more mechanical animations.

This is exactly I would be interested in! Do you also have any tips for 2D drafting in harmony with openscad?

You'd have to be more specific. What does "2D drafting in harmony with openscad" mean?

I made a framework to write OpenSCAD code in Ruby. Helps a lot to keep yourself sane on big projects: https://github.com/Joaz/CrystalScad

There's also a similar project for Python [1].

That said, do I understand correctly that the way you assume the users will share their OpenSCAD models is to share the generated OpenSCAD scripts?

[1] https://github.com/SolidCode/SolidPython

My work is heavily inspired by SolidPython. SolidPython, unfortunately has some shortcomings at the syntax (resulting in too many braces to read properly).

I do hope that the people will share the ruby code and not the generated openscad code, as that would be hardly readable.

I not (yet) got ruby installed. Have you an example how https://github.com/Joaz/bulldozer/tree/master Builds in openSCAD format or .stl or even a jpg ?

Thanks, Brendan