I want to apply a certain modification on a bunch of stl files. So I wrote an openSCAD program and wanted to script from the command line, but it doesn't work and I can't figure out why.
According to the man page, I thought the following command would work but it doesn't (Ah, also I use an appimage version of openSCAD (for in case it would be important):
OpenSCAD-2021.01-x86_64.AppImage -o [OUTPUT FILE NAME] 'myscript.scad' -D filename=[INPUT FILE NAME]
However, it appears, the -D options doesn't do what I expect. So I made a little test script:
echo ("START");
filename1="cube.stl";
echo(filename1=filename1, filename2=filename2);
minkowski() {
import(filename1);
sphere(r=1, $fn=24);
}
translate([30, 0, 0])
minkowski() {
import(filename2);
sphere(r=1, $fn=24);
}
If I test myscript.scad with the gui version of openSCAD, it gives the following result (which is expected):
Compiling design (CSG Tree generation)...
ECHO: "START"
WARNING: Ignoring unknown variable 'filename2' in file test.scad, line 5
ECHO: filename1 = "cube.stl", filename2 = undef
WARNING: Ignoring unknown variable 'filename2' in file test.scad, line 14
Compiling design (CSG Products generation)...
ERROR: Unsupported file format while trying to import file '""', import() at line 14
Geometries in cache: 5
Geometry cache size in bytes: 128056
CGAL Polyhedrons in cache: 0
CGAL cache size in bytes: 0
Compiling design (CSG Products normalization)...
Normalized tree has 2 elements!
Compile and preview finished.
Total rendering time: 0:00:00.177
However, if I test it in command line, no value is initialized, and by the way, I have no idea what are both those warning on line 19 and 20 while my scad file only has 16 lines:
MyPrompt> ./OpenSCAD-2021.01-x86_64.AppImage -o 'test.stl' 'test.scad' -D filename1=cube.stl -D filename2=cube.stl
WARNING: Ignoring unknown variable 'cube' in file test.scad, line 19
WARNING: Ignoring unknown variable 'cube' in file test.scad, line 20
ECHO: "START"
ECHO: filename1 = undef, filename2 = undef
ERROR: Unsupported file format while trying to import file '""', import() at line 8
Geometries in cache: 4
Geometry cache size in bytes: 118112
CGAL Polyhedrons in cache: 1
CGAL cache size in bytes: 1362752
Total rendering time: 0:00:00.854
Top level object is a 3D object:
Simple: yes
Vertices: 576
Halfedges: 3168
Edges: 1584
Halffacets: 2024
Facets: 1012
Volumes: 3
For reference the cube.stl was made with the cube(); command and contains:
00000000 4f 70 65 6e 53 43 41 44 20 4d 6f 64 65 6c 0a 00 |OpenSCAD Model..|
00000010 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
*
00000050 0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f |...............?|
00000060 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f |.......?...?...?|
*
00000080 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |...?............|
00000090 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 |.?...?.......?..|
000000a0 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.....?...?......|
000000b0 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.....?..........|
000000c0 00 00 80 bf 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
000000d0 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f |...?...?.......?|
000000e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 00 00 |................|
000000f0 00 00 00 00 80 bf 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 |.........?...?..|
00000100 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000110 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.....?..........|
00000120 00 00 80 bf 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000130 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f |.......?.......?|
00000140 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 |...........?....|
00000150 00 00 00 00 80 bf 00 00 00 80 00 00 80 3f 00 00 |.............?..|
00000160 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.....?..........|
*
00000180 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f |...?...........?|
00000190 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f |.......?...?...?|
*
000001b0 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.....?..........|
000001c0 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 |.?...?.......?..|
000001d0 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.....?...?......|
000001e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 80 |...........?....|
000001f0 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |...?...?........|
00000200 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f |...?...?...?...?|
00000210 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 |...?.........?..|
00000220 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 |.........?...?..|
00000230 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.?...?..........|
00000240 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 bf 00 00 00 00 |.?..............|
00000250 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000260 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 |.......?...?....|
00000270 00 00 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 bf 00 00 |...?............|
00000280 00 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 |.............?..|
00000290 80 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.?..............|
000002a0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 3f 00 00 |.........?..|
Ok, Got it :
The problem comes from the fact that openSCAD wants to receive string with the quotation marks. However, the shell will try to eat them. So, the correct calling syntax will be :
MyPrompt> ./Téléchargements/OpenSCAD-2021.01-x86_64.AppImage -o 'test.stl' 'test.scad' -D filename1='"cube.stl"' -D filename2='"cube.stl"'
ECHO: "START"
ECHO: filename1 = "cube.stl", filename2 = "cube.stl"
Geometries in cache: 4
Geometry cache size in bytes: 136832
CGAL Polyhedrons in cache: 1
CGAL cache size in bytes: 1524416
Total rendering time: 0:00:01.021
Top level object is a 3D object:
Simple: yes
Vertices: 672
Halfedges: 3536
Edges: 1768
Halffacets: 2200
Facets: 1100
Volumes: 3
This also explains the warnings, because it wasn't try to interpret cube.stl as a string, but as a variable name in dot notation (so the main variable name was indeed cube).