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OpenSCAD

A programmer's solid 3D CAD modeller.

OpenSCAD describes 3D solids with a small functional language: you write code that combines primitives (cube, cylinder, sphere, polyhedron) with CSG operations (union, difference, intersection) to produce a model. Variables and modules let you parameterise designs — change a single number to rescale a part or alter its hole pattern — which is what makes OpenSCAD so popular for repeatable, repairable, and customisable designs.

OpenSCAD is well suited to parts that depend on parameters or repetition: brackets sized to specific bolts, gears with chosen tooth counts, enclosures designed around a particular PCB. It is the dominant choice in the 3D-printing community for parts that someone else might want to remix; sharing a .scad file with parameters is much friendlier than sharing only a geometric STL.

The project has had several maintainers since Marius Kintel started it in 2009. Releases happen roughly annually and add features (linear extrusion improvements, surface importing, font rendering, Customizer for parameter sliders) at a measured pace. The licence is GPL-2.0 or later, so all OpenSCAD designs released as code are free software.

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install openscad
Fedora/RHEL:   sudo dnf install openscad
Arch:          sudo pacman -S openscad
macOS:         brew install --cask openscad