I’ve got more half-finished openscad projects than lost left socks and I’ve found it pretty hard to locate specific projects after some time. Opening each individual scad-file just to check feels cumbersome, and writing notes and readmes ain’t exactly my thing unless working on something serious.
I put together a very simple script to generate thumbnail images recursively from .scad files. Very basic, very simple but helps me alot.
Windows and Linux/Unix/etc versions in the comments.
@echo off
::For windows
set binfile=“C:\Program Files\OpenSCAD\openscad.exe”
set viewporttranslate=0.00,0.00,0.00
set viewportrotation=55.00,0.00,25.00
set viewdist=400
set options=–imgsize=1024,768 --projection=ortho
echo %~dp0
for /R %%i in (*.scad) do (
if not exist “%%i_out.png” (
echo %%i
%binfile% -o “%%i_out.png” “%%i”
%binfile% -o “%%i_out.png” %options% --camera=%viewporttranslate%,%viewportrotation%,%viewdist% “%%i”
)
)
pause
exit
#!/bin/bash
binfile="/usr/local/openscad/openscad-latest/openscad"
viewporttranslate=0.00,0.00,0.00
viewportrotation=55.00,0.00,25.00
viewdist=400
options="–imgsize=1024,768 --projection=ortho"
pwd
for i in find . -name "*.scad"
do
if [ ! -f “${i}_out.png” ]
then
echo $i
“${binfile}” -o “${i}_out.png” $options --camera=${viewporttranslate},${viewportrotation},${viewdist} “$i”
fi
done
Place the script at the top of the folder tree you wish to generate thumbnails for. Note that to speed up the run it will not regenerate/overwrite previously generated thumbnails. Delete the thumbs you wish to regenerate before running the script.
Have you considered building a file browser using that script and a little C# or Java magic?
Might even be able to make it into a shell extension to give the files themselves thumbnails in Explorer.
@Daniel_ShadowDrakken nope, but I’m sure it can be improved upon by anyone who want more from it. I threw it together last night and it solved my immediate problem on both platforms I work on (Win 8.1 and Ubuntu 12.04).
By changing view to Icons or Thumbnails in pretty much any standard file manager which support png files I find it works well enough for the effort invested 
Windows version bug fixed. Forgot to set the options variable. Worked anyway…
This solves one of my problems (for Win7 and Ubuntu 12.04). Thank you!
I’m waiting for someone with a big brain to solve my other problem: A visual explorer for STL files. I have a large collection of STLs, and many have similar or no-descriptive names. I would love a way to visually sort through them all!
@Carlton_Dodd http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12064996/how-to-generate-thumbnails-from-stl-files
There’s also https://support.formlabs.com/entries/41070008-STL-File-Thumbnail-Preview-In-Windows-
@Daniel_ShadowDrakken Had to run to my other computer and try that. Even upgraded Netfabb Basic. Still no preview icons. 
Thanks for the links. I’ll keep looking.
Yeah, it sounded pretty hit and miss in the thread too… like Netfabb supports it, but is buggy about it from the sounds.
@Carlton_Dodd know it doesn’t help a whole loss but I store my sw files with the same names and you can view the part via icons for sw and they’ll be side by side.
@D_Rob
Yeah, I assume you’re talking about thumbnail images (not familiar with ‘saw’ files). That would work. I was just looking for a more ‘elegant’ solution.
@Carlton_Dodd fixed my post. Damnable autocorrect. SW as in solid works lol.
@Carlton_Dodd @Daniel_ShadowDrakken
I had the same question. In interactive mode you can import .stl into OpenScad (and output to whatever), but this doesn’t help for a directory full of .stl’s. Doesn’t look like CLI can handle .stl as input file.