<div dir="ltr"><p>I don't have a strong programming background, but I do have 10+ years of professional experience working with Solidworks.</p><p dir="ltr">F-rep is worth looking into from the perspective of simplifying the inside/outside of a boundary, problem - something helpful for declarative design. <br></p><p dir="ltr"></p><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><br><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Although 1 and 2 could be part of the same interface, I don't believe that you can force all FOSS users to do scripted CAD. You need a traditional point-and-click CAD GUI as well for the majority of users. Even with one on one training, I've had a hard time getting traditional CAD users to embrace CadQuery. It's too much of a shift in thinking.</span></div></div><br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The "shift in thinking" is not correctly empathetic to the goals here. Scripting is fine for highly repetitive generative design, but fails at one-off design details of complex machines (ie robots, smartphones, etc). Scripting isn't as useful in these conditions, because, for example: stock components are not continuous, there are discrete and discontinuous size options, and every corner you look there is an entirely unique design problem, mechanism, etc. - it is difficult to generalize every condition. A database of design rules needs to be able to be referenced by the scripts.<br><br>Further, making machines is more experience, art, and empirically derived design rules than analytical equation. That means your best machine designers have spent their years taking apart and building things, rather than programming. That means they have highly developed 3D visualization skills, but probably not as much programming - these are discretely different skills. That means a pure scripting tool isn't useful to those with the skills and experience to build robust systems. <br><br></div><div>As an example/challenge: please find me an example of a scripted machine that's more complicated than some laser cut 2D parts, or static 3d printed object. <br></div><div><br>I think it's important to keep in mind what the point of new tools are; I would think it's about leveraging the experience and skills of the user and combining that with computational capacity of code. If you drop the gui you are severely limiting the scope and scalability of your project. <br><br>If on the other hand we come up with an interesting way to tie a coding interface that can smoothly and natively integrate code with a 3D gui point and click interface then I think we're really onto something cool and useful that leverages what each type of user interface is good at doing.<br><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><br></div></div>
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