my name is mwd

The joke is that joining a hackspace is like joining a gym: you sign up, full of good intentions, then never go. I promised myself I’d do at least something at Makespace over the holidays, and I got it in just before the wire:

It’s not much, but I did the design and fabrication of this little cube here. For me the important thing wasn’t the cube, but that I sorted out a workflow that I was happy with; otherwise when I think of things I might build I tend to put them off as I don’t know how to get there, even if I have access to the equipment required.

One of the main bits I wanted to sort out was some CAD software that I didn’t despise. Most people I’ve talked to at Makespace tend to use Inkscape to do 2D designs for the laser cutter, but I detest Inkscape with a fashion. Although it runs on the Mac, it is not a native OS X application, so there’s a large amount of mental friction when using the tool for anything, which usually leads me to giving up.

I’ve tried various alternatives to Inkscape without much luck, but the one that I had success with this time round was ViaCAD. This has an OS X version, which still doesn’t really behave like a Mac application, but is less jarring to use than Inkscape. It doesn’t suit my mental model particularly, but I was able to easily design my cube on paper, draft it in ViaCAD with the correct dimensions for the wood I was using (finally an application of my technical drawing O-level), and export it in the right format for Makespace’s laser cutter. ViaCAD is not free, but it’s quite cheap for the 2D version, which is all I currently need.