OUR EXPERT
Tam Hanna’s creativity can be compared to the amount of humour found in a stone or the communication capability of popped balloon. In short, he is the ideal candidate to explain how to design cool things using OpenSCAD.
This tutorial and the one that will follow next month use a series of natural 3D objects to T introduce how OpenSCAD works. While a complete discussion of the software’s programming language is impossible due to the system’s power, we will attempt to give an overview of the capabilities provided by this open source app to get you up and exploring this incredibly useful design tool.
OpenSCAD, which started life in a (since run-down) Austrian government research facility, has established itself well – at the time of writing, almost all distros provide a ready-to-run version. Sadly, these are usually heavily out of date.
Instead, open the URL downloads.html in a browser of your choice and scroll down until you find the Other Linux section. Click the button corresponding to your operating system’s architecture; currently, is available for x86 and ARM. The reward is the downloading of the file OpenSCAD-2021.01-x86_64.AppImage, which can be executed from the command line: $ chmod +x
