Programming with OpenSCAD

206 Pages·10.934 MB·English

by  Justin Gohde, Marius Kintel

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P R O G R A M M I N G W I T H
O P E N S C A D
A B E G I N N E R ’ S G U I D E T O C O D I N G
3 D - P R I N T A B L E O B J E C T S
J U S T I N G O H D E A N D M A R I U S K I N T E L
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Y
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PROGRAMMING WITH OPENSCAD

P R O G R A M M I N G
W I T H O P E N S C A D
A Beginner’s Guide to Coding
3D-Printable Objects
by Justin Gohde and Marius Kintel
San Francisco
PROGRAMMING WITH OPENSCAD. Copyright © 2021 by Justin Gohde and Marius Kintel.  
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-954-7 (print)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-927-1 (ebook)
Publisher: William Pollock
Production Manager: Rachel Monaghan
Production Editor: Dapinder Dosanjh
Developmental Editor: Jill Franklin
Cover Illustrator: Gina Redman
Interior Design: Octopod Studios
Technical Reviewer: Miro Hrončok
Copyeditor: Sharon Wilkey
Compositor: Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Proofreader: Emelie Battaglia
Indexer: Beth Nauman-Montana
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photo of the Leaning Tower of Pisa featured in Figures 7-1 to 7-4 is by Svetlana Tikhonova. The image is
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[V]
About the Authors
Justin Gohde has been teaching math and computer science for more
than 20 years. He is the head of computer science at Trinity School in
Manhattan, New York, where he oversees the computer science curriculum
and programs, including the Design Lab makerspace, which features a
wide collection of rapid prototyping tools for supporting computer science,
robotics, and other STEAM-focused projects.
Marius Kintel is the primary author and maintainer of OpenSCAD. He is
a software engineer with more than 20 years of professional experience in
diverse fields such as 3D visualization, physical computing, manufactur-
ing automation, and cloud computing. In 2007, he became involved in the
RepRap project out of an interest in learning electronics and the opportu-
nity to transfer his knowledge of 3D graphics into the creation of tangible
objects. Together with the rest of the local RepRap team at the Metalab
hackerspace in Vienna, Austria, he created OpenSCAD out of a need for
an open source multiplatform design tool more suitable for 3D printing.
The project was adopted by the maker community at large and has since
grown to become one of the most popular open source 3D modeling tools
for 3D printing.
About the Technical Reviewer
Miro Hrončok is a software engineer mostly working on integrating the
Python ecosystem into Fedora Linux. Besides that, he also takes care of the
3D printing stack (including OpenSCAD) in Fedora. He teaches Python
and 3D printing basics at the Faculty of Information Technology, Czech
Technical University in Prague.

BRIEF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Chapter 1: 3D Drawing with OpenSCAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Chapter 2: More Ways to Transform Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Chapter 3: 2D Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 4: Using Loops and Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chapter 5: Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
Chapter 6: Dynamic Designs with if Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Chapter 7: Designing Big Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143
Appendix A: OpenSCAD Language Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Appendix B: OpenSCAD Visual Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173