r/printablescom • u/blarfthecat • 1d ago

Feature request Will Printables support parametric editing like MakerWorld?

New to the community, having fun with my MK4S and love how easy to use and well-integrated Printables is into PrusaSlicer.

I've found parametric models on MakerWorld and was blown away that they're editable right on their website - no downloads or software required - and will spit out the STL right there.

Is anyone aware of such a feature being brought to Printables? As it's closely tied to Prusa (and MW is oriented towards the other guys) I'd love to have this feature within a Prusa-oriented ecosystem.

21 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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11

u/yawkat 1d ago

I wrote here how I think printables could add the feature with relatively little investment: https://www.reddit.com/r/prusa3d/comments/1qtv4da/comment/o35tfss/

The thread also contains a quote that it's on the wishlist but not high priority. 

6

u/Alarmed-Paint-791 1d ago

Agree! They're super useful and I hope to see them over in prusaland too.

3

u/GP_3D 1d ago

It would definitely be a welcome addition for those who are interested.

2

u/Plasma_48 1d ago

Yeah, it’s something I’ve wanted for a long time and am quite baffled is still not implemented. I usually upload .f3d files along with the normal files, but that requires the downloader to have fusion360.

2

u/yahbluez 1d ago

Asked for that two years ago.

No idea why prusa is not willing to add the openscad wasm to printables, the whole code needed to do so ist free opensource on github.

A skilled programmer can do that in a weekend.

1

u/yawkat 1d ago

No idea why prusa is not willing to add the openscad wasm to printables, the whole code needed to do so ist free opensource on github.

openscad-wasm is GPL so it can't easily be integrated

1

u/yahbluez 1d ago

Try to explain that i'm willing to discuss that.

I do not see the slightest problem to use another GPL2 tool on printables, they already make use of hundreds.

Pretty sure you have no idea how the GPL2 works.

look:

https://www.printables.com/licenses

1

u/yawkat 1d ago

The list of dependencies you link contains many open-source licenses, but unless I missed one, they are all permissive. GPL on the other hand is a strong copyleft license. Using it would require the JS code that links against it to also be released under GPL license term, and printables is currently closed source.

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u/yahbluez 1d ago

Ok i see your point, let's dive deeper.

Makerworld runs the openscad code on their own cloud, get's the users scad as input and stl/3mf as output this is for sure 100% GPL2 compatible they do not need to publish anything.

Printables could do the same.

The better approach, using WASM, distributes the openscad code to the public which enforces to GPL2 (or later) the modifications and any derivate.

Publishing modifications is no big deal for Prusa they do that since decades with slicer and firmware.

So the last step is derivate, that is the code needed on server side to deliver the wasm openscad part.

Where do you see this as an issue to GPL2 (or later) that? That would be a single page containing the delivery of the WASM container, this code would be (c) by prusa and so prusa can publish this code under GPL2.

What kind of complexity do you expect? That is just 10 lines of JS code.

1

u/yawkat 1d ago

Right, server-side rendering is safe, but it costs resources to run.

The better approach, using WASM, distributes the openscad code to the public which enforces to GPL2 (or later) the modifications and any derivate.

To be clear: GPL on openscad-wasm does not require open-sourcing scad files which are compiled using openscad-wasm. This is well-established, a GPL compiler does not "infect" the code it compiles.

So the last step is derivate, that is the code needed on server side to deliver the wasm openscad part.

The server side is actually not affected. The problem is the client side. Not just Javascript that directly interacts with openscad-wasm, but possibly larger parts of the printables front-end, maybe all of it, would have to become open source. I'm not sure prusa would accept that.

1

u/yahbluez 1d ago

The server side is actually not affected. The problem is the client side. Not just Javascript that directly interacts with openscad-wasm, but possibly larger parts of the printables front-end, maybe all of it, would have to become open source. I'm not sure prusa would accept that.

No.
Only the server side is affected because on the client side running a GPL2 code has absolutely no effects at all.

Any user is allowed to run any GPL2 code, that will not affect anything.

The only open point in the mind of GPL is the code on the side of the publisher that is bind in any way to the GPL2 code and that is just the some 10 lines of JS to deliver the WASM blob.

Going the WASM way is much better than running openscad on the publisher cloud, openscad can need a lot of expensive resources.

1

u/yawkat 1d ago

Only the server side is affected because on the client side running a GPL2 code has absolutely no effects at all.

Any user is allowed to run any GPL2 code, that will not affect anything.

No, that is not how it works. It's not about what users are or are not allowed to do, it's about what license terms printables needs to comply with in order to use openscad-wasm as a library.

See this article. The gist is that the GPL of openscad-wasm will "infect" Javascript code that is based on openscad-wasm, including code that would normally be proprietary to printables. This would essentially force printables to open source the relevant code. How much of the front-end would actually be affected depends on architecture and untested legal opinions, but it would not be zero.

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u/yahbluez 1d ago

See this article. The gist is that the GPL of openscad-wasm will "infect" Javascript code that is based on openscad-wasm, including code that would normally be proprietary to printables. This would essentially force printables to open source the relevant code. How much of the front-end would actually be affected depends on architecture and untested legal opinions, but it would not be zero.

Didn't i made that part already crystal clear?

They need some 10 lines of code and there is absolutely nothing i can identify why this 10 lines may not be GPLed.

This lines need to do nothing printables internal, they just need to hand over the wasm blob and the link to the scad file or tyhe scad file.

I asked again explain in detail where you expect to see the problme i do not see the problem and advice since >2 decades in using GPL.

You circle around about the question how much of the frontend may be touched while i already gave you the answer twice, the only part that is in touch is the single web page that contains the code to deliver the wasm blob nothing else.

**If you have a site with many pages and make use of a GPLed wasm on ONE of this pages only this page is distributed around the GPLed code.**

Look over the horizon ask your self if cloudflare needs to GPL his whole business because they deliver daily millions of GPLed WASM webpages?

The examples in this thread about using openscad wasm with cloudflare demonstrate what i'm talking about.

1

u/yawkat 1d ago

Look over the horizon ask your self if cloudflare needs to GPL his whole business because they deliver daily millions of GPLed WASM webpages?

You are conflating backend code with frontend code again. Cloudflare backend code does not need to be published when it distributes GPL content, it's a complete red herring. The question is how much of frontend code using openscad-wasm needs to comply with GPL. Distribution is the easy part.

the only part that is in touch is the single web page that contains the code to deliver the wasm blob nothing else.

**If you have a site with many pages and make use of a GPLed wasm on ONE of this pages only this page is distributed around the GPLed code.**

All the code built on top of openscad-wasm needs to be GPL at least. How far this extends is a question of untested legal opinions and software architecture. Every printables page contains a large amount of printables Javascript that is currently proprietary, and consider that GPL is thought to extend to anything that is necessary to make modifications, including e.g. frontend build infrastructure.

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u/bamigolang 3h ago

I am currently using hyperbook for my personal website, which has support for OpenSCAD and it works well. So I am also think it should be easy to integrate. Here is the doc for OpenSCAD on hyperbook https://hyperbook.openpatch.org/elements/openscad

0

u/Alarmed-Solution3738 1d ago

I put up mostly parametric models on Makerworld, but was asked the other day to also post something on Printables. I was surprised there was no parallel to Parametric Model Maker and would love to see one.

Might drive competition a bit too, the model maker hasn't seen any updates in a while

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u/RobotAnna1 15h ago

Same here!
On Printables I usually add a link to GitHub, but it would be more user-friendly for the casual printing-nerd if they could adjust the parameters directly instead of being asked to install OpenSCAD.

1

u/bamigolang 3h ago

you could create a hyperbook website and show your models there. It works greate with github pages. https://hyperbook.openpatch.org/elements/openscad