3D part design with OpenSCAD #120: Transparency trick

Sometimes it's helpful to "see into" your design to align objects or make sure they overlap properly, and while you can set the transparency with color, if the items overlap they block out sections of one another. Here is a way to temporarily make them transparent,

3D part design with OpenSCAD #119: Adding a few more features to the text outliner code.

After experimenting with the text outliner I wanted to add some things like selecting the color from a drop down list, being able to make the text wider and having the capability to have a gap between the outline and the text. Here is the code: // /*[Text]*/ $fn=60;//[20:

3D part design with OpenSCAD #118: Text outliner.

Sometimes it's nice to have outlined text for making signs with letters that really stand out, I didn't see any that did what I wanted after a quick search so I made my own. Here is the code: // /*[Text]*/ $fn=60;//[20:1:100] Input_Text=

3D part design with OpenSCAD #117: Color Picker

If you ever need to select a large number of names from a list OpenSCAD has an easy way to do this. Here is a "color picker" example to select a color that is shown on the wiki from a list: OpenSCAD User Manual/Transformations - Wikibooks, open

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD # 116: Getting bounding box information from multiple objects.

When you import multiple objects into OpenSCAD there is an easy way to get the individual bounding box information for each object by simply showing the object you want the info for and hiding the other objects. I do this quite a bit with the OpenSCAD code I write by

3D part design with OpenSCAD#115 : Auto center an stl file.

A few days ago I saw a post by krysus on reddit that showed a really neat way to automatically center an stl: Any protip on centering an imported STL in openscad? by u/rebuyer10110 in openscad That post is an excellent example of why I like to use OpenSCAD,

3D part design with OpenSCAD # 114: centering an stl file.

Sometimes you get an stl file that someone else has designed and it is not centered or you want to center two files and it is difficult to get them to align, as far as I am aware OpenSCAD doesn't have a simple way to exactly center an

3D part design with OpenSCAD #113: More fun with for loops.

I was experimenting with the basket code I made quite some time ago to see if I could make some lamp shades, after simplifying it I came up with some different shapes that were interesting. This is unfinished but still shows that you don't need a lot of

3D part design with OpenSCAD#112: Adding a box lid snap ring.

After taking a look at the box maker in the last post I decided I wanted to add some features to it just for fun and one thing that crossed my mind was a way to snap the lid on the box so I wouldn't need screw holes.

3D part design with OpenSCAD #111- Rounding corners

Quite some time ago I was making a project box customizer but never got around to finishing it, I still need to add standoffs, holes in the lid, etc. But there are a ton of really good OpenSCAD examples available to make project boxes so this one may never get

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD #110: "sculpting" with OpenSCAD?

intersection() is a really cool way to add some more capabilities to your code, here is an example of how you can take some basic outlines made with Inkscape and carve out a more complex object. I added a few new lines to my existing svg layer code so I

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD #109: adding SVG import capability to the slotted disk module.

For the slotted disk module I made in the last post to be fully customizable it needed the capability to add any pattern you want to the face of the disk and make the pattern so it could be a hole or extend past the top so I made some

3D part design with OpenSCAD # 108: making a customizable slotted disk.

Being able to make slots that are evenly spaced around a disk is pretty useful for making machines and timing a rotating object. Here is some simple code to make a custom slotted disk. // /*[Slots]*/ slot_number=24;//[1:1:36] slot_depth=1;//[.1:.01:19] slot_width=2;

3Dpart design with OpenSCAD #107: Puffy text.

Recently I was experimenting with a way to expand certain items using a move-able "pillow" shape so I can make some different designs but I hit a wall and wasn't getting anything to work like I wanted it to, usually I will just set the project

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD #106: Making nice curves.

Sometimes it's nice to smooth out a corner where two objects meet and Inkscape has some tools to make this pretty easy. Here is an example of a pivot arm, I started with a square and made it into a rectangle with the adjustment arrows: I converted it

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD #105: A handy use for minkowski()

I was experimenting with a way to turn a flat 2D line into a round 3D line and minkowski works great for this, here is the basic code: Path_to_SVG_File =""; Sphere_size=2;//[.1:.01:20] width=.001;//[.001:.01:20] Rotate_x=0;//[0:.01:

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD #104: Inkscape tip-adjusting multiple nodes at the same time

Once in a while I make a design and I want to round the corners or just specific corners so they have the same radius and Inkscape has a pretty easy way to do this. Here are two objects that I want to make into a wrench, and i want

3D part design with OpenSCAD #103: grabbing an outline from an stl file with offset()

After making the last post I was experimenting with a way to grab an outline from any area of an stl file to use for a fillet or chamfer, it's pretty easy to do this using the offset command and making a frame around a design so you

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD#102: put a fillet or chamfer around anything.

A few posts back I added an option to do a fillet or chamfer with svg layers imported from Inkscape, but it lacked the capability to do a fillet or chamfer around an individual object on a specific layer, this module addresses that. Minkowski is great for this but takes

3D part design with OpenSCAD #101: Using roof to make a tapered countersink screw hole.

Making a tapered countersink hole for a screw is pretty easy using roof, here is an example: // Taper=true; Taper_adjust=10;//[.01:.01:100] recess_size=10;//[0:.01:100] recess_shape=100;//[3:1:100] recess_depth=3;//[0:.01:100] hole_size=10;//[.1:.01:100] hole_

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD # 100: Using a non planar slicer to generate gcode for a cnc?

This post is about an experiment I tried to see if I could use a slicer like slic3r or orca slicer to generate gcode for a cnc, the simulations look good but I haven't tried it on a cnc yet and it is definitely a work in progress.

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD #99: STL to CNC part 2, using multiple layers with gcodetools.

In the last post I set up a basic svg file as an introduction to the  gcode tools extension , in this post I'm going to set up a template with multiple layers so it can be used to make different cut depths for different layers and engraving. This

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD # 98: STL to CNC part 1.

It's pretty easy to use Inkscape and OpenSCAD to turn an STL file into a gcode file for a cnc machine. In this first part I'm going to set up a template in Inkscape so gcode tools is  ready to go so you don't

3d Printed

3D part design with Inkscape and OpenSCAD#97: SVG tube perforate module.

Previously I made a module that you could use to perforate different shaped holes in a tube to make an interesting design, these used dxf files or an stl file: 3d part design with Inkscape and Openscad #43: Revisiting the perforate moduleA revisit to the tube perforate module to modify

OpenScad

3D part design with OpenSCAD # 96: You don't have to be a "programmer" to make models with OpenSCAD

A few tips for anyone that is new to OpenSCAD