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Al Williams
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OpenSCAD for 3D Printing 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Al Williams (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 104 ratings
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The 3D printer is a great tool for turning your ideas into real solid objects. However, taking that idea and turning it into a real 3D model is often a frustrating process. OpenSCAD is a free open source tool that allows you to build models of practical real world items. Using a simple scripting language, you can create complex objects and easily customize them and re-purpose them. Unlike traditional CAD programs, you don't need a steady hand and a high resolution mouse to create models with OpenSCAD. You only need the ability to logically structure your description of the object you want to build. This book will show you how to get the most from OpenSCAD, ranging from simple shapes, complex libraries, text, and more.
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  1. Edition
    1st
  2. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  3. Publication date
    January 29, 2014
  4. Language
    English
  5. File size
    761 KB
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00I6K19OM
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 29, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 761 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 83 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 104 ratings

About the author

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Al Williams

Al Williams

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Over the years I've written many books on computer and electronic topics. I've also written articles or columns for magazines including Dr. Dobb's Journal, Web Techniques, Visual Developer, C/C++ User's Journal, Embedded, and many other periodicals. I currently write for Hackaday, a hardware-oriented web site.

In addition to appearing at Software Development and the Borland Developer's Conference, I previously taught computer-related classes for Technology Exchange, a division of Addison Wesley.

A long-time ham radio operator (WD5GNR), I'm active on PSK31 and other digital modes. My recent interests have turned to 3D printing.

I live in Houston, Texas.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
104 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

MR BUMP
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2018
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Covers everything you need to start using openscad and explains it clearly. After reading this book I switched from free cad and I'm using openscad. Its so much easier.

Being a programmer openscad is the way to create models.
One person found this helpful
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Sam W.S Ng
4.0 out of 5 stars Basic and concise but not in-dept.
Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2015
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It is s concise and easy-understand book about OpenSCAD. The content is quit simple in the beginning and the middle part of the book. It seem to be the fact that it can not give more in-dept examples about OpenSCAD script. I suggest that the writer can use more in-dept and interesting examples about how to write OpenSCAD script to create more complex 3D model.
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John Doner
5.0 out of 5 stars and unnecessarily complex) and Sketchup
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2017
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I bought a 3d printer for product prototyping, so of course, I had to climb the learning curve of some 3D design package. I tried TinkerCad (too limited), Fusion360 (overkill, and unnecessarily complex) and Sketchup. Of the three, Sketchup had a good balance of capabilities and decent user interface, but it's very quirky -- you don't always get the same result from the same actions. So then I saw the 3d printed digital sundial, which is a devilishly intricate piece of design, and it had been done with OpenSCAD. I decided to try it. The use of textual description provides an absolute control over placement and dimensions that just doesn't come easily with any mouse-oriented tool. And editing is wonderful! I had designed a panel with 21 insert holes all the same size, but on printout, they turned out to be about 0.1 mm small. All I had to change was the value of a "holeSize" constant, and the edit was done. 5 seconds?

So if you have any skill at 3D visualization, this is the way to go. It is vastly more efficient than dragging a mouse around, and hoping all the joints are mated, and that the dimensions are right.
7 people found this helpful
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Michael K Johnson
3.0 out of 5 stars Lightweight, poorly formatted
Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2016
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I'm confident that I do not represent the target audience for this book, and I wish this had been clearer from reading the description. I started using OpenSCAD by doing a search for "openscad cheat sheet" and reading the official cheat sheet, and was hoping for a book that would give me something more than the online documentation. This book wasn't it.

First, it was in my experience generally less helpful than the online documentation at the official OpenSCAD web site. I haven't even read entirely through that documentation, just used it as a reference while starting to make parts, and I found that I had already learned practically everything I could find in this book in just a few hours of attempting to use OpenSCAD on my own.

Second, the examples are very hard to read because they are formatted with double-spacing, which makes it hard to see the indentation that communicates the relationship of the parts being assembled and so reduces the value of the examples. Since this is a print-on-demand book, I'd strongly suggest that the author reformat the examples with an eye to readability.

Finally, I think that the text would benefit from additional chapters providing guided development of example parts of moderate complexity to show better how to use OpenSCAD in practice.

It's probably an OK start if you find the OpenSCAD web site's official documentation overwhelming and don't know where to get started using OpenSCAD. I'd certainly suggest that my kids start by reading this book if they want to try OpenSCAD, but I'll also listen to them if they find it hard to read, particularly the examples.
2 people found this helpful
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Rickey H Braddam
5.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction to OpenSCAD for beginners
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2014
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Mr. Williams gets you started easy. By the time he gets to the hard parts, they are easy too. I didn't think I'd like a CAD program based on programming (or scripting) as compared to a graphical interface where I draw objects with a mouse or graphics tablet. Now I think I will like it better and I haven't even installed OpenSCAD yet!
6 people found this helpful
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Mike Z
4.0 out of 5 stars good, solid book
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2014
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I think this is a very solid book. It dishes up useful information in an easy to digest manner. You can probably dig through help online or whatever to find it yourself, but this is a cheap, fast, easy way to come up to speed on OpenScad.
I borrowed the book on my Kindle with my Amazon Prime membership and decided to buy the book after reading it. I found myself referring to the book when creating models, so I had no problem buying it.
4 people found this helpful
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Tome
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Reference
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2014
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The few errors were automatically updated by Kindle. It provides a quick reference for new (to me) key words and I was rapidly able to develop 3D parts and turn them into STL file for printing on my 3D printer. Very accurate measurements, but you must be aware of the shrink factor of the material you are printing with.
7 people found this helpful
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Benoit Marchal
4.0 out of 5 stars Light on printing
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2015
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Beware as the title is misleading. This is mostly an OpenSCAD language tutorial. If you've gone through the (free) OpenSCAD manual and you've found the "export to STL" option in the menu then you have already read 95% of the content.
It's still worth reading if you can spare the time because you'll pick a few tips on the language along the way (it's always best to learn a language from two different sources to learn the nuances) but if you're hoping for printing-specific information, e.g. how to design a model such that it prints efficiently than you'll be very disappointed.
Four stars because it's good at what it does but not five because I was hoping for (as the title implied) design tips and techniques for 3D printing.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Cliente Amazon
1.0 out of 5 stars Dinero tirado.
Reviewed in Spain on June 11, 2021
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Este librito no aporta nada, en la pagina web de Openscad hay informacion mas completa.
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Charlotte
5.0 out of 5 stars Good coding information
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 23, 2021
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I had never coded before. This is easy to learn and well explained. I have been able to get on with it quite quickly
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bernisim
4.0 out of 5 stars Molto sintetico, ma va bene per chi non conosce il programma
Reviewed in Italy on August 17, 2020
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Estremamente conciso, con esempi: a volte vanno interpretati, ma cercavo qualcosa che mi desse una visione di insieme e mi è servito.
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AnaximAndre
3.0 out of 5 stars Bonne introduction à OpenSCAD mais sans plus. (en langue anglaise)
Reviewed in France on May 16, 2019
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L'ouvrage est bien construit, bien structuré. Le texte est clair. Les propositions de code bien choisies.
Si vous n'avez pas de connexion internet, ou si vous appréciez de ne pas avoir à basculer d'un logiciel "web" à l'écran d'OpenSCAD, pour une initiation, l'ouvrage convient bien. Mais il est trop limité. La présentation voulue très aérée et le peu de pages de l'ouvrage (76) entrainent une frustration légitime.
Il manque terriblement un index de toutes les fonctions utiles sous OpensSCAD. Le niveau reste basique !. Pour ma part, je ne recommande pas cet éditeur dont la démarche (naïve) disperse, dilue, dans de nombreuses publications un savoir de base.
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Stefan Aachen
5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to follow
Reviewed in Germany on January 28, 2017
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This might not be true for any non-programmers, but for me this book is well paced and structured. Code examples with explainations understand are a good method of teaching.
One person found this helpful
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