I have been working on a way to document and script OpenSCAD designs and have reach some milestones that may be of interest to others who wish to do similar.

To see what I am talking about have a look at this example library reference manual:

• refman.pdf - http://www.thingiverse.com/download:3155308

It has been completely and automatically generated from its OpenSCAD source files.

I've been developing a set of utilities called openscad-amu which provides a Doxygen input filter (and more) that allows OpenSCAD script documentation to be generated from its source using Doxygen (etal).

Next, I've been working on a design library called omdl. Its major contribution is its documentation and framework for auto-validation.

The source is being developed on GitHub and occasionally updated on Thingiverse.

Github:

• openscad-amu - https://github.com/royasutton/openscad-amu
• omdl - https://github.com/royasutton/omdl

Thinivers:

• omdl  - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1934498
• Template - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1858181

Comments, constructive-criticism, contributions are welcome!

That's a very extensive package you got there. I took a quick tour and found
that there is api/documentation tools, tests (!! essential for handling a
package like this !!), unit conversion, as well as many other
functions/modules for different sorts of shapes. Can't imagine how much
effort you put into it.  Nice work.

Two thoughts come to my mind:

1. Will the doxygen tool be able to output html pages?

2. Since there are so many useful modules for creating different shapes,
   will it be good for users to have a summary page, on which all shapes in
   graphics are shown, each comes with the function/module to generate them ?

$  Runsun Pan, PhD $ libs: doctest , faces ( git ), offline doc ( git ), runscad.py ( 2 , git ), synwrite ( 2 );   $ tips: Collection of tips on github

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Been working on things off/on since the middle of last year. Most of the
effort has gone into the Doxygen tool ( openscad-amu
https://github.com/royasutton/openscad-amu  ). I've only spent the last
few weeks putting together the example library ( omdl
https://github.com/royasutton/omdl  ) mostly as a test/demonstration for
the tool.

What started me down this road is the belief in the potential of
language-based mechanical design. And in this area, OpenSCAD is the only
widely accessible option. I quickly discovered that what I was missing was
(1) a way to automate my design flow from a set of high-level parameters to
rendered (printable/carvable/cutable) parts and (2) a way to manage
documentation in the world of SCAD (design, parts, libraries, etc). This is
what I've tried to address with openscad-amu... It has a bit of a learning
curve, but good potential... I have created an install script and example
use template to help.

/To respond/: Yes the documentation can be built in HTML format (thanks to
Doxygen).. And HTML is my preference (web browsers have come a long way). I
hope you will have a look at the HTML version of the omdl documentation....
Moreover, if you have interest, use openscad-amu to "install" this example
library. This will install the SCAD library files and the HTML/PDF
documentation. It uses a simple documentation "repository" that makes it
easy to organize and reference ones collections of core libraries.

The install instruction can be found at the GitHub source repository in the
section  Automated install
https://github.com/royasutton/omdl#automated-install  . The install
process should be fairly painless on Linux (and Cygwin). The build script
gathers the system dependencies and can build to a local user-space cache
directory that can be easily removed.

I think something resembling the summary page you suggest can be found in
the HTML formatted documentation. See the tab called "Modules." (It's the
third from the left starting from the Main Page).

Thank you for having a look and for the feedback!!!

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Runsun,

Wanted to let you know that since January, there has been a lot of work done
to improve this library. After getting the tool stable, I turned my
attention to library development. It is a completely difference beast from
January.

Have a look here at the  library Git Hub Page
https://royasutton.github.io/omdl/  .

Thanks!
Roy

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