Apple M1 migtation

Hi all,

If you haven‘t heard already, Apple are moving to their own ARM based
hardware architecture.

My question is, how deep does the Python behind  the OpenSCAD app go? Is it
running entirely in Python, or are their platform dependent compiletime
components?

I’m asking this because, if it’s entirely Python3, the transition to the new
Apple M1 hardware may just inherently be done. If there are native
compiletime components it may still cope by using Rosetta 2, the built in
emulator. I will be receiving a Macbook Air M1 before Christmas, so happy to
be a beta tester for this. I know I should have probably bought sooner, lol,
but had other affairs to settle first beforeI knew what I could afford.

Suggesting I use other platforms will be ignored. I’m genuinely willing to
help this community to transition the Apple flavoured version (not a
programmer’s bung, but understand enough to follow basic compile
instructions) and provide feedback on nightly builds.

My apologies if this is a newb question but it’s time for to give back what
I to the real programmers here because I love this app and have a genuine
need for it.




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On November 25, 2020 at 12:02:16, crunchysteve ([hidden email]) wrote:

Hi all,

If you haven‘t heard already, Apple are moving to their own ARM based
hardware architecture.

My question is, how deep does the Python behind the OpenSCAD app go? Is it
running entirely in Python, or are their platform dependent compiletime
components?

I’m asking this because, if it’s entirely Python3, the transition to the new
Apple M1 hardware may just inherently be done. If there are native
compiletime components it may still cope by using Rosetta 2, the built in
emulator. I will be receiving a Macbook Air M1 before Christmas, so happy to
be a beta tester for this. I know I should have probably bought sooner, lol,
but had other affairs to settle first beforeI knew what I could afford.

Suggesting I use other platforms will be ignored. I’m genuinely willing to
help this community to transition the Apple flavoured version (not a
programmer’s bung, but understand enough to follow basic compile
instructions) and provide feedback on nightly builds.

My apologies if this is a newb question but it’s time for to give back what
I to the real programmers here because I love this app and have a genuine
need for it.




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On 25.11.20 21:01, crunchysteve wrote:
> My question is, how deep does the Python behind  the
> OpenSCAD app go?

There is no python in the normal application installation.
It's only used at build time, e.g. to run the test suite.

It might run via Rosetta 2, that will have to be seen when
someone can actually try this. So if you get the M1 Air,
it would be interesting to hear if and how it works.

> Suggesting I use other platforms will be ignored. I’m
> genuinely willing to help this community to transition
> the Apple flavoured version (not a programmer’s bung,
> but understand enough to follow basic compile instructions)
> and provide feedback on nightly builds.

That kind of help would go a long way. Right now I don't
have contact to someone who both has an Apple machine to
build on and also the time to help. I can barely run
pre-built binaries on the old 2009 MacBook Pro machine
I have sitting here.

ciao,
  Torsten.

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Rverything I find on the subject that I confidently understand gives me hope
that the transition should be a smooth one, but it’s the deep backend bits,
like CGAL that have me worries. However, I have my old Air to fall back on,
so trying out nightly builds on the new one is something I can and will do.

I’m looking forward to the fun 😁



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On 25.11.20 21:25, Verachten Bruno wrote:
> I'm still fighting with building openScad for aarch64 on
> Linux (mainly because of AppImage).

Why, what's the issue? There's a not fully up-to-date aarch64
AppImage built for RaspberryPI 64-bit and it builds fine on
Ubuntu 20.10 and Debian. So aarch64 in itself should not be
a problem

The question is probably more regarding the tools provided
(basically XCode at version >= 12.2 as far as I have read)
and the time needed to build.

ciao,
  Torsten.



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On November 25, 2020 at 12:21:47, crunchysteve ([hidden email]) wrote:

Rverything I find on the subject that I confidently understand gives me hope
that the transition should be a smooth one, but it’s the deep backend bits,
like CGAL that have me worries. However, I have my old Air to fall back on,
so trying out nightly builds on the new one is something I can and will do.

I’m looking forward to the fun 😁



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> On 25.11.20 21:25, Verachten Bruno wrote:
> > I'm still fighting with building openScad for aarch64 on
> > Linux (mainly because of AppImage).
>
> Why, what's the issue?
I'm having problems with cgal (installed but not found). Later on, I
also have problems with AppImage (no official aarch64 release), which
depends on LinuxDeploy (no official aarch64 release), which depends on
CMake (no official aarch64 release).

> There's a not fully up-to-date aarch64
> AppImage built for RaspberryPI 64-bit and it builds fine on
> Ubuntu 20.10 and Debian. So aarch64 in itself should not be
> a problem
Interesting. Would you please share a link, so that I can have a look
at how it is built? I would love to have code from master branch
compile regularly for aarch64.

Thanks a lot,
--
Bruno Verachten

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On Wed, Nov 25, 2020 at 3:16 PM Torsten Paul <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I can barely run
> pre-built binaries on the old 2009 MacBook Pro machine
> I have sitting here.

I'm in the same boat.  My MBP is mid-2010.  It runs fine, but it's
stuck in time.  I will likely have to retire it in the next couple of
years.

I do not buy new Apple hardware.  It's too expensive for me.

-ethan

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On 26.11.20 09:28, Verachten Bruno wrote:
> I'm having problems with cgal (installed but not found).

I've built based on a Debian Docker image, so that worked
with the normal cgal package.

Base Image:
https://github.com/openscad/docker-openscad/tree/master/appimage/appimage-arm64v8-base

OpenSCAD Build:
https://github.com/openscad/docker-openscad/tree/master/appimage/appimage-arm64v8-openscad

> Interesting. Would you please share a link, so that I can have a
> look at how it is built? I would love to have code from master
> branch compile regularly for aarch64.

That is the one built via Docker linked above. Link is on the
normal download page / snapshot section:

https://www.openscad.org/downloads.html#snapshots

ciao,
  Torsten.


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I've pinned the XCode version to 12.2 for the CircleCI builds
which means the snapshots should build with the latest XCode
release going forward.

Meanwhile the test build is available at:
http://files.openscad.org/snapshots/OpenSCAD-2020.11.27_xcode12.2.dmg

I'm not sure why this is just 17mb vs. 26mb of the current
builds. It seems to at least start on my ancient MacBook Pro
(OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan).

If that otherwise makes any difference regarding newer machines,
I don't know.

ciao,
  Torsten.


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Come on Total Cost of Ownership?

My 2011 Pro (“inherited” from my daughter after she got a new one) still
runs better than a friend’s 12 month old PC and, in the 7 years I’ve been
running my 2013 Air, another friend has killed 4 PCs, a total expenditure on
her part of 30% more than mine, and my Air goes bicycle touring with me,
belted about with my camping gear in a pannier.

Initially expensive sure, but find me another brand where the longevity
stories run to 10 years!

Anyway, my rant aside lol, the discussion on this thread so far has been
interesting and hopeful.



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My M1 Air is scheduled to arrive in 2 weeks or so, Torsten, so definitely up
for the challenge of testing builds.



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OK, I'm having a love/hate relationship with my M1 Macbook Air right now.
There are quirks to Big Sur (MacOS 11) that are frustrating me, mostly a new
gesture that is too subtle and nuanced for good design (force touch) but
I'll get over it ;-)

The good news is, immediately after replacing Safari with Chrome as my
default browser, I downloaded the latest stable build of OpenSCAD and ran
it.

First, I was told that, to run it, I needed to download and install
Rosetta2, Apple's Intel emulator for the M1 Macs. This happened live and
VERY quickly. Next, I double-clicked OpenSCAD and got the usual "first run"
security protocol, "The App OpenSCAD cannot be verified..." (can't remember
the exact wording, but it's the usual thing with non Developer Connection
meber apps) This involves clicking Cancel, going to Apple/System
preferences.../Security and Privacy, where it will say, "OpenSCAD could not
be verified" and give you the option to run it anyway or delete it, run it
anyway, it will again confirm that you really do want to run it again and
then will run happily ever after. (Unless you delete and reinstall.)

This is my first experience of the M1's processor speed and all those cores!
OpenSCAD's current build is running under Intel emulation. Total emulation.
The model I tested is a moderately complex (probably inefficient) bicycle
pannier mounting system, and it generated a render, ready for export in
about 2/3 the time it takes on my old i5 2013 Air and in easily less than a
10th of the time my 2010 Macbook Pro takes. It saves that render to an STL
in what I can only call instantly! All under Intel emulation on Apple
Silicon M1

So, the Mac version will get by for now, and will give our community 2 years
to get 100% M1 native. Meanwhile, the roadmap is to build a "Universal
Binary" using X-Code. I have played around with trying to learn Swift and
Objective C on Mac OS and never really had the patience to get beyond a 10
step tute on "How to write your own Mac App." But in all that, I know that
Mac OS does support C, C++ and Python in the command line developer tools
when X-Code is installed, so Mac builds should be easy for somebody who
knows how to do this, or for me if somebody can steer me through the
process. I do work well from "recipes."

From here, I'm happy to start learning and reading to help however I can. No
promises I'll be any good. However, what I can do is run nightly builds and
give feedback.

I also iterate again that Developer connection membership is worth it to
remove the "Cannot be verified" first run hurdle.

So, Mac OS build status: Runs under Big Sur on Apple Silicon under Rosetta
emulation, straight from download.

Two screenshots uploaded...
OpenSCADPreview.png
<http://forum.openscad.org/file/t3026/OpenSCADPreview.png>  
OpenScadRender.png <http://forum.openscad.org/file/t3026/OpenScadRender.png>  



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I am also having a love hate relationship with my new M1.

The primary purpose of buying a new computer was to reduce the long CGAL
rendering (F6) times of some of my larger models (WW2 Spitfire Cockpit
Instruments) on my 2012 I7 Macbook.  Some can take 40+ minutes.

A lot of this could possibly be down to the way that I use OpenScad and not
understanding any of the tuning options.
 
The M1 will F6 render faster than the i7 at around 175% so good news there.

However the big problem that I have is that trying to change the viewpoint
in preview mode on my more complex models has dropped from around 4 or 5fps
to around 2 seconds per frame making it totally unusable.

Any thoughts or suggestions ?
<http://forum.openscad.org/file/t3083/Screenshot_2021-01-09_at_10.png>      



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On 09.01.21 11:20, caggius wrote:
> Any thoughts or suggestions ?

In addition to the other suggestions, you can register
this new feature:
https://github.com/openscad/openscad/pull/1935

Once it's merged, which may happen in the next couple of
days, try out the snapshot version (and enable the new
display features in Preferences).

ciao,
  Torsten.

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Render time is proportional to complexity. That's always been the case, since
the dawn of the computer age. So, while you probably may already know this,
but jic you don't, don't use larger numbers than necessary in $fn calls. If
your fragments are about the size of your intended print resolution for a
given job, that's as large a number as you ever need to plug into $fn, which
in my experience, seems to increase render time logarithmically as its value
increases.



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I don't think it is restricted to Mac.
I've just compared my complex model in RC5 v's 2019.05.
In 2019.05 preview repaint is bad at ~5s, ie, click view/front icon, 5s to repaint.
In RC5 it is unusable.

The repaint overwhelms the GUI handling.
I got to the point where I clicked the close X,
but as I had unsaved changes, I got the 'do you want to save'
dialogue, but as that overlayed the viewport, it went to
repaint, clicking 'cancel' typing Esc was ignored.

I pulled up another windows, then minimised it,
OpenSCAD repainted the editor & console (in ~3s), tries to
repaint the viewport, and never gets to repaint
the dialogue box.

I think this needs fixing before release.
I'll raise an Issue with further info.
 


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oops...I keep forgetting I'm using S/W rendering on my VM.


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