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I work with Fusion360 for designing lots of things. Recently I learned how to work with parameters that I can easily modify all at once, allowing to pretty much make easily customizable pieces.

Now, Thingiverse wants customizer pieces in the shape of .SCAD files, and some people just can't work with Fusion360 (.F3D) or proper .STEP files that can be imported by most CAD programs.

I have no experience with OpenSCAD. Can I import my .STEP into openSCAD, retain my parameters and export it as a .SCAD, and if yes, how?

Trish
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2 Answers2

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Even though OpenSCAD can import a variety of formats, the file structure will not be accepted by Thingiverse in the manner presented by the OP.

OpenSCAD is a text-based description language. One creates parameters assigned to specific aspects of a model and implements those parameters to create the desired shapes/components by typing in a text editor. The native editor for OpenSCAD provides for some management, but notepad or equivalent would work just as well.

The file format of OpenSCAD is text. None of the CAD type modeling programs will provide equivalent text output.

For your objective, you'd have to learn the basics of OpenSCAD (not particularly difficult) and reference the parameters in the STEP files, then assign them to the appropriate labels in OpenSCAD.

If you have particularly complex designs, it can be a handful. It can also be rewarding when you change a parameter as a test and the complete model follows as expected.

fred_dot_u
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  • I find pure text based input a PITA - and never worth the effort. – Trish Mar 27 '20 at 18:40
  • I find anything I can't edit as pure text a PITA and never worth the effort - the effort ends up being all wasted when you want to change something and have to start over. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Mar 28 '20 at 01:00
  • WIth that said, though, I think there should be some reasonable way to automate conversion of these formats into clean, editable OpenSCAD source. It just might (or rather almost certainly will) take some programming (in whatever language you prefer) to do it. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Mar 28 '20 at 01:02
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No, you cannot import STEP nor Fusion360 files in OpenSCAD.

OpenSCAD currently supports:

3D formats

  • STL (both ASCII and Binary)
  • OFF
  • AMF [Note: Requires version 2019.05]
  • 3MF [Note: Requires version 2019.05]

2D formats

  • DXF
  • SVG [Note: Requires version 2019.05]

Other

  • CSG can be imported using include<> or loaded like an SCAD file, PNG can be imported using surface()
0scar
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