FeatureScript Changes the Game

Speaking of flat cars, what about their loads? Most of the time, these cars would have carried lumber or logs. Without a sawmill on the line, it is unlikely they carried logs in my town, but there is a photo of a flat car of lumber in Pembroke.

I’d always imagined I would create lumber loads out of scale lumber. Rob Kirkham was building some at a recent modelling night, and exclaimed at the amount of scale lumber they consume. Then, at an operating session on Anthony Craig’s layout, I noticed he had some nice resin loads, and those don’t consume any scale lumber at all!

Now, I have a way to make resin parts. It’s called a 3D printer. It needs a 3D model to work from. But, how could I get the variation of a hand-stacked load into the perfect world of a computer?

I started out with a drawing with a bunch of random parameters from my head. This was laborious, but not untenable. It would have been helped immeasurably if there were a mod() function in OnShape, and even more if there were a random() function. While looking for these, I stumbled upon the OnShape programming language, FeatureScript.

A few hours later, I had bungled my way through a desert of documentation and into making my first four custom features in OnShape. The last one is a pile of lumber. You simply fill in a form with the values like number of columns and layers of lumber, and a random seed, and you get a stack of lumber, complete with supports for 3D printing!

This new skill completely changes the game of 3D modelling for me. Imagine being able to place rivets along a line with a given pitch and diameter with the stroke of a pen. Imagine being able to introduce micro-variations in thickness. Consider being able to add grain. All of these were difficult or time-consuming before, but now just a few hours of programming away. The game has changed. Again.