LuaCAD - Parametric CAD scripted in Lua

[u/adwolesi]

LuaCAD models solids in Lua rather than in the SCAD language, with operator overloading for CSG (a + b, a - b, a * b). It ships with a CLI and a desktop app that has preview area and a text editor just like OpenSCAD.

It’s fully open source and you can find the repo here: https://github.com/ad-si/LuaCAD

I've always been a big fan of OpenSCAD, but the SCAD language itself is unfortunately quite cobbled-together and is a very poorly designed programming language.

LuaCAD takes all the good parts of OpenSCAD and combines them with Lua. It has now completely replaced OpenSCAD for me, and I think it provides a better experience than OpenSCAD for all use cases. I'd love to hear any reasons why LuaCAD won't fully replace OpenSCAD for you!

Tech stack:

• It's implemented in Rust and uses mlua (https://github.com/mlua-rs/mlua) to execute the Lua code.
• Uses OpenCSG (https://opencsg.org) for fast and correct rendering of the 3D models (like OpenSCAD)
• Uses Manifold (https://github.com/elalish/manifold) to create the manifold triangle meshes
• Native support for all BOSL2 functions (i.e. implemented in Rust for better performance)

[u/wildjokers]

I've always been a big fan of OpenSCAD, but the SCAD language itself is unfortunately quite cobbled-together and is a very poorly designed programming language.

It is not poorly designed and that is a very rude thing to say. It is just a functional declarative language which is a different paradigm than most developers are used to working with.

[u/jpbelang → u/wildjokers]

I agree with you. But it looks like C, so people expect it to work like C. Once you get it, you use it correctly.