CadQuery editor

CadQuery GUI editor based on PyQT supports Linux, Windows and Mac.

Notable features

• OCCT based
• Graphical debugger for CadQuery scripts
  • Step through script and watch how your model changes
• CadQuery object stack inspector
  • Visual inspection of current workplane and selected items
  • Insight into evolution of the model
• Export to various formats
  • STL
  • STEP

Installation - Pre-Built Packages (Recommended)

Release Packages

Stable release builds which do not require Anaconda are attached to the latest release. Download the zip file for your operating system, extract it, and run the CQ-editor script for your OS (CQ-editor.cmd for Windows, CQ-editor.sh for Linux and MacOS). On Windows you should be able to simply double-click on CQ-editor.cmd. On Linux and MacOS you may need to make the script executable with

chmod +x CQ-editor.sh

Development Packages

Development builds are also available, but can be unstable and should be used at your own risk. Click on the newest build with a green checkmark here, wait for the Artifacts section at the bottom of the page to load, and then click on the appropriate download for your operating system. Extract the archive file and run the shell (Linux/MacOS) or cmd (Windows) script in the root CQ-editor directory. The CQ-editor window should launch.

Installation (Anaconda)

Use conda to install:

conda install -c cadquery -c conda-forge cq-editor=master

cq-editor

Alternatively clone this git repository and set up the following conda environment:

conda env create -f cqgui_env.yml -n cqgui
conda activate cqgui
python run.py

On some linux distributions (e.g.

Ubuntu 18.04

sudo apt install libglu1-mesa libgl1-mesa-dri mesa-common-dev libglu1-mesa-dev

dnf install -y mesa-libGLU mesa-libGL mesa-libGLU-devel

Usage

Showing Objects

By default, CQ-editor will display a 3D representation of all

Workplane

show_object

show_object

options

options

alpha

color

alpha

show_object(result, options={"alpha":0.5, "color": (64, 164, 223)})

Note that

show_object

Shape

TopoDS_Shape

show

Rotate, Pan and Zoom the 3D View

The following mouse controls can be used to alter the view of the 3D object, and should be familiar to CAD users, even if the mouse buttons used may differ.

• Left Mouse Button + Drag = Rotate
• Middle Mouse Button + Drag = Pan
• Right Mouse Button + Drag = Zoom
• Mouse Wheel = Zoom

Debugging Objects

There are multiple menu options to help in debugging a CadQuery script. They are included in the

Run

• Debug

  (Ctrl + F5) - Instead of running the script completely through as with the

  Render

  item, it begins executing the script but stops at the first non-empty line, waiting for the user to continue execution manually.

• Step

  (Ctrl + F10) - Will move execution of the script to the next non-empty line.

• Step in

  (Ctrl + F11) - Will follow the flow of execution to the inside of a user-created function defined within the script.

• Continue

  (Ctrl + F12) - Completes execution of the script, starting from the current line that is being debugged.

It is also possible to do visual debugging of objects. This is possible by using the

debug()

show_object()

debug()

result = cq.Workplane().box(10, 10, 10)

highlight = result.faces('>Z')

show_object(result, name='box') debug(highlight) ``

Objects displayed with

Console Logging

Python's standard

print()

log()

log()

print()

Using an External Code Editor

Some users prefer to use an external code editor instead of the built-in Spyder-based editor that comes stock with CQ-editor. The steps below should allow CQ-editor to work alongside most text editors.

1. Open the Preferences dialog by clicking

   Edit->Preferences

   .
2. Make sure that

   Code Editor

   is selected in the left pane.
3. Check

   Autoreload

   in the right pane.
4. If CQ-editor is not catching the saves from your external editor, increasing

   Autoreload delay

   in the right pane may help. This issue has been reported when using vim or emacs.

Exporting an Object

Any object can be exported to either STEP or STL format. The steps for doing so are listed below.

1. Highlight the object to be exported in the Objects panel.
2. Click either

   Export as STL

   or

   Export as STEP

   from the

   Tools

   menu, depending on which file format you want to export. Both of these options will be disabled if an object is not selected in the Objects panel.

Clicking either Export item will present a file dialog that allows the file name ad location of the export file to be set.

Displaying All Wires for Debugging

NOTE: This is intended for debugging purposes, and if not removed, could interfere with the execution of your model in some cases.

Using

consolidateWires()

import cadquery as cq
res = cq.Workplane().rect(1,1).rect(3,3).consolidateWires()
show_object(res)

Highlighting a Specific Face

Highlighting a specific face in a different color can be useful when debugging, or when trying to learn CadQuery selectors. The following code creates a separate, highlighted object to show the selected face in red. This is an alternative to using a

debug()

debug()

import cadquery as cq

result = cq.Workplane().box(10, 10, 10)
highlight = result.faces('>Z')
show_object(result)
show_object(highlight,'highlight',options=dict(alpha=0.1,color=(1.,0,0)))

Naming an Object

By default, objects have a randomly generated ID in the object inspector. However, it can be useful to name objects so that it is easier to identify them. The

name

show_object()

import cadquery as cq

result = cq.Workplane().box(10, 10, 10)
show_object(result, name='box')