What is OpenSCAD?

OpenSCAD is a software for creating solid 3D CAD objects. It is free software and available for Linux/UNIX, MS Windows and Mac OS X.

Unlike most free software for creating 3D models (such as the famous application Blender) it does not focus on the artistic aspects of 3D modeling but instead on the CAD aspects. Thus it might be the application you are looking for when you are planning to create 3D models of machine parts but pretty sure is not what you are looking for when you are more interested in creating computer-animated movies.

OpenSCAD is not an interactive modeler. Instead it is something like a 3D-compiler that reads in a script file that describes the object and renders the 3D model from this script file (see examples below). This gives you (the designer) full control over the modeling process and enables you to easily change any step in the modeling process or make designs that are defined by configurable parameters.

OpenSCAD provides two main modeling techniques: First there is constructive solid geometry (aka CSG) and second there is extrusion of 2D outlines. As data exchange format format for this 2D outlines Autocad DXF files are used. In addition to 2D paths for extrusion it is also possible to read design parameters from DXF files. Besides DXF files OpenSCAD can read and create 3D models in the STL and OFF file formats.

Getting started

You can download the latest binaries of OpenSCAD at http://www.openscad.org/downloads. Install binaries as you would any other software.

When you open OpenSCAD, you'll see three frames within the window. The left frame is where you'll write code to model 3D objects. The right frame is where you'll see the 3D rendering of your model.

Let's make a tree! Type the following code into the left frame:

cylinder(h = 30, r = 8);

Then render the 3D model by hitting F5. Now you can see a cylinder for the trunk in our tree. Now let's add the bushy/leafy part of the tree represented by a sphere. To do so, we will union a cylinder and a sphere.

union() {
  cylinder(h = 30, r = 8);
  sphere(20);
}

But, it's not quite right! The bushy/leafy are around the base of the tree. We need to move the sphere up the z-axis.

union() {
  cylinder(h = 30, r = 8);
  translate([0, 0, 40]) sphere(20);
}

And that's it! You made your first 3D model! There are other primitive shapes that you can combine with other set operations (union, intersection, difference) and transformations (rotate, scale, translate) to make complex models! Check out all the other language features in the OpenSCAD Manual.

Documentation

Have a look at the OpenSCAD Homepage (http://openscad.org/) for documentation.

Building OpenSCAD

To build OpenSCAD from source, follow the instructions for the platform applicable to you below.

Prerequisites

To build OpenSCAD, you need some libraries and tools. The version numbers in brackets specify the versions which have been used for development. Other versions may or may not work as well.

There are helper scripts that may be able to assist you in downloading and/or building these dependencies on your machine. Please follow the instructions for the platform you're compiling on below.

• A C++ compiler supporting C++11
• Qt (4.4 -> 5.x)
• QScintilla2 (2.7 ->)
• CGAL (3.6 ->)
• GMP (5.x)
• MPFR (3.x)
• cmake (2.8 ->, required by CGAL and the test framework)
• boost (1.35 ->)
• OpenCSG (1.3.2 ->)
• GLEW (1.5.4 ->)
• Eigen (3.x)
• glib2 (2.x)
• fontconfig (2.10 -> )
• freetype2 (2.4 -> )
• harfbuzz (0.9.19 -> )
• Bison (2.4 -> )
• Flex (2.5.35 -> )
• pkg-config (0.26 -> )

Note that many of these package in turn have their own dependencies not listed here. These will typically be installed automatically by the package manager on your system when you install the packages listed above.

Getting the source code

Install git (http://git-scm.com/) onto your system. The package may be called 'git-core' or 'scmgit' on some systems. Then run a clone:

git clone git://github.com/openscad/openscad.git

This will download the latest sources into a directory named 'openscad'.

Now cd into the openscad directory and pull the MCAD library (http://reprap.org/wiki/MCAD):

cd openscad
git submodule update --init

Building for Mac OS X

Prerequisites:

• Xcode
• cmake
• pkg-config

Install Dependencies:

After building dependencies, follow the instructions in the Compilation section.

1. From source

Run the script that sets up the environment variables:

source setenv_mac.sh

Then run the script to compile all the dependencies:

./scripts/macosx-build-dependencies.sh

1. Homebrew (assumes Homebrew is already installed)

    ./scripts/macosx-build-homebrew.sh
   

2. MacPorts (assumes MacPorts is already installed)

   For the adventurous, it might be possible to build OpenSCAD using MacPorts. The main challenge is that MacPorts have partially broken libraries, but that tends to change from time to time.

   NB! MacPorts currently doesn't support Qt5 very well, so using Qt4 is the only working option at the moment. However, MacPorts' Qt4 has a broken moc command, causing OpenSCAD compilation to break. This may be fixed in MacPorts by the time you read this.

    sudo port install opencsg qscintilla boost cgal pkgconfig eigen3 harfbuzz fontconfig
   

On Windows

OpenSCAD can be built on Windows using the MSYS2 system. First, download and install MSYS2 from

 http://msys2.github.io

Please make sure to carefully follow the instructions to fully update your MSYS2 installation. This may take several hours and GB of space. Then continue

Building on Linux, BSD, or MSYS2

The basic formula is the same for all of these platforms. First, setup environment variables.

source ./scripts/setenv.sh

Then get dependencies

sudo ./scripts/get-dependencies.sh

Build the Makefile with qmake, then make the main openscad binary

qmake
make

To build an installable package for your system, run

./scripts/make_package.sh

The resulting package will be under the bin/ directory. It supports Debian gdebi style .deb, Windows .exe/.zip, and Mac .dmg

Linux without root

Use the linuxbrew setenv option. It installs dependencies into $HOME/.linuxbrew using the Linuxbrew / Homebrew packaging system.

source ./scripts/setenv.sh homebrew
./scripts/get-dependencies.sh
qmake && make

Cross build from linux to Windows with MXE.cc

This setenv option will setup a cross compiler, so that you can build Windows binaries on a Linux build machine. These instructions will also work using "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows" running under the Windows Linux Subsystem included with Windows 10.

First install MXE requirements from http://mxe.cc/#requirements. Then run

source ./scripts/setenv.sh mingw64
./scripts/get-dependencies.sh
qmake && make

Use mingw32 if you wish a 32 bit build.

Test suite

To run the self-tests, first build the main openscad program above, then run

cd tests cmake . make ctest

Problems building

If you had problems compiling from source, please raise a new issue in the issue tracker on the github page.

On some systems, depending on which version(s) of Qt you have installed, you may need to specify which version you want to use, e.g. by running 'qmake4', 'qmake-qt4', 'qmake -qt=qt5', or something alike.

See doc/testing.txt for more information on test builds.

This site and it's subpages can also be helpful: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Building_OpenSCAD_from_Sources

Thank you for using OpenSCAD.