OpenSCAD is a game changer for 3d printing

This is a post about a (free) program called OpenSCAD.

I recently bought a 3d printer.  Mostly just because they've gotten good enough and cheap enough that I woudn't feel too bad if it mostly sat on a shelf.

I've been having quite a bit more fun with it than I expected, mostly because of the amazing site thingiverse.com where people have uploaded thousands of printable things you can just download and print (it's not *quite* that easy yet, there's plenty of tinkering and troubleshooting still required with today's cheap 3d printers).

Mostly I've been printing things to bling out my board games.

But this past week a couple of people teamed up on the DonationCoder forum to help make a model of our site mascot (Cody the Bird), and a customizable base for him to sit on.  You can follow along with that thread here: https://www.donation...ic=45256.0;topicseen

A photo:

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I've tried experimenting with doing 3d design using tools like Blender, and my brain completely shuts down, which is a shame because it would be fun to be able to DESIGN models not just print models that others have made.

Which brings me to the reason I'm posting, OpenSCAD.

OpenSCAD has been a revelation for me.  It's basically a CAD (computer aided drafting) programming language and development environment, which makes it easy for a programmer to design and model 3d objects for printing, using algorithms/code.

It's a joy to use -- you can write programs to create 3d objects and instantly preview and study them and then save them for printing.  And most of the models on thingiverse that are customizable are made with OpenSCAD, which is a great way of getting started.

My mind is swimming with the idea of creating both useful and precise objects, but also useless and mathematically interesting objects...

Here is a video talking about OpenSCAD: