AARRRRR! Man, I f’king hate Openscad., I take a scad script straight from Github, change 2 parameters compile/cgal and then it won’t export to STL because the model isn’t manifold. “Fine” I say, “I’m going to modify the model in Rhino anyway so I’ll fix the manifold issue there” but apparently there is no override feature that lets me export anyway. grrrrr
you could take a look at freecad for test purposes
Parametricity is a huge issue with any kind of CAD - even the big CAD suites still hugely depend on the user setting up the part properly to allow for modifications.
Generally what results in non-manifold issues in OpenSCAD is a hollow, round tube, intersecting a flat face. Add some tolerances to the edges of your holes, and it should fix the problem. Even 0.01mm should fix it.
For example, you difference a cube([10,10,30], center=true); with a cylinder(r=5, h=30); – The radius of the cutout is the exact same width as the cube, and it’ll render, but cgal will throw errors a lot of the time. Just make the cube 10.01, or the cylinder r=4.99 and you’re good.
It can still be difficult to find sometimes, but this is what most often causes these kind of non-manifold errors in OpenSCAD for me.
I had this problem last night. I eventually went through every block of code, commenting out chunks until i found the object that caused the issue. Turned out i had 2 faces touching, but not overlapping.
Openscad really needs error highlighting. Highlight the offending code or highlight the faces.
I find this online service excellent for checking my stl files… http://cloud.netfabb.com
I normally wouldn’t touch openscad with a long pole but I need a particular ratio of herringbone gears and I don’t want to try to reverse engineer them in a proper modelling application. All I’m doing is changing the tooth count to 11/44.
OpenSCAD is a brilliant program for programmers because you don’t have to draw anything, you write a program!
But why is the openscad editor so horrible? Are there alternatives?
@Shachar_Weis You can use any external text editor. Sublime Text can highlight OpenScad syntax and auto suggest names. Just hide internal editor in OpenScad and turn on auto reload. You can even put OpenScad on different screen. It will repaint after each file saving.