CadQuery & OpenScad Implementation

[udif]

Just a silly question.
I understand how JScad is running in the browser, given it's a pure JavaScript tool.
I also understand that OpenCascade was running by using a WASM-compiled version of OpenCascade.

How is the python-based CadQuery running? Is it also running in the browser using some python to JS technology, or is it server based?
Same question also applies to OpenScad.

Thanks!

[hrgdavor]

CadQuery and OpenScad are running on the server side in some sort of container/VM. I do not know full details. But I definitely know it is running server-side.

[jmwright]

Just to add some detail: The CadQuery integration utilizes a Python utility called cq-cli that takes the script passed to it through the web stack, executes it, then returns an STL. @Irev-Dev did the integration of the cq-cli Docker setup I did into the web interface, so I don't know a lot of the details. Long story short, CadQuery runs in a container on the server side and then provides an STL that is displayed viaThree.js and is also available for download.

[Irev-Dev]

@hrgdavor and @jmwright have already answered this. The answer is yes serverside (and docker based, cq-cli for CadQuery and the OpenSCAD cli).

The docker setup is in this area of the codebase https://github.com/Irev-Dev/cadhub/tree/main/app/api/src/docker

Why do you ask @udif, just general curiosity?
Do you want more detail than that?

[udif]

I ask because I always prefer running things on my machine because it's one less server to rely upon, one less point of failure, running user code on servers is a DOS surface attack, and as I'm a good guy, I would prefer that anyone like you who is nice enough to provide us with such a service, will pay less for hosting...
I wonder if technologies such as brython could make this a reality.
I know this is not simple, because CadQuery itself relies on a C++ native code library with python wrappers, but with WASM I guess everything could be done.

[Irev-Dev]

Yup, Running CadQuery or OpenSCAD locally is definitely a better experience anyway outside of sever cost since there's no network lag, so for serious development that's definitely recommended. What I'm hope CadHub does is lowers the barrier to try these tools and well as making it easy to share models, or use the customizer.

Having things running directly in the browser with WASM would absolutely be great, I personally don't have that skill set or the time to pick it so I'm focusing on the many improvements to the CadHub platform itself, but if you know of anyone trying to port it over do let me know, I would love to follow along with it's progress.

For reference I know of this incomplete and rather old at this point PR to openscad.
openscad/openscad#1262