Interesting Nodebox tutorial on Instructables.com

Came across this:

and was curious what folks thought about the use of Nodebox or something similar as a front-end for the machine.

I’ve been experimenting a bit with using OpenSCAD, but am getting frustrated with the limitations of it — currently it’s looking like:

  • d/l OpenSCAD
  • open file
  • set parameters — restart entering parameters if units are changed
  • d/l miktex or mactex
  • run lualatex on a file which accesses the JSON file OpenSCAD wrote out
  • open PDF in Inkscape, resave as SVG, open in Carbide Create

that last part might get replaced by: open TPL file in CAMotics

One thing which I found very surprising about the above tutorial was the use of Processing for a 3D preview.

I guess what I’m fishing for is what would be the best interface or toolset for parametric project design? I’m worried that this is going to end up like one of my projects at work where I do something along the lines of:

  • export XML from a database
  • import XML into InDesign
  • export Adobe Tagged Text from InDesign
  • run a RegEx find/replace
  • reimport Adobe Tagged Text
  • run an AppleScript
  • page the book (usually using an assortment of scripts to automate aspects of the formatting, and tricking InDesign into doing things such as running heads in ways it’s not supposed be able to using hidden formatting)
  • run a second AppleScript to generate the ToC and index
  • run a third AppleScript to generate proofs/single page files for printing

and which everyone declares is impossible for them to do.