A multi-axis, concave typing experience on your good ol' planar keyboard!
This library is an OpenSCAD keycap generator that is designed around minimal-input, multi-axis typing surfaces. The library is intended to make concave "keywell" keyboard experiences more accessible. This is accomplished by implementing the various elements of a keycap as discrete primitives which can be composed as individual "novelty" keys, universal-profile (flat) keysets, single-axis contoured keysets, or multi-axis countoured keysets.
The classic Iris layout from Keeb.io. There could hardly be a more perfect starter, for someone wanting to dip their feet into the split pool. This model has a 12.25 degree sweep along the X and Y axes, but with a 15 degree shift towards the top. The F-key row is sloped off, because I secretly wanted the Chiri to start with.
Technically, this is actually just an iris with the top-row blanked-off. This is still effectively a 6-column Keeb.io Chiri keyset. This has a 15 degree sweep along X and Y axes, with minimal rise. This is from very early in the life of this project.
Sunder's latest model, the C60 HE, is a Hall-Effect, column-stagger split. This model strongly resembles a Corne v4, but with an extra row...and with magnetic switches! This layout has a shift towards the middle, as I was hesitant to glue magnetic rings to the bottom of the gorgeous aluminum case.
- Few-parameter keycap surface control
- Mechanically robust stem mounts with no hard-corner weakspots
- [~] Vertical offsets for stems to enable keycap shrouding and low-profile keycaps
- Sacrificial build-surface interfaces to negate any detriment to tolerances from auto-generated supports
- Provide flexible, parametric sweep models
- Single-lobe spherical sweep for split or left/right half ortholinear layouts
- Single-lobe, bi-modal sweep for keywell emulation on split/ortho layouts
- Dual-lobe spherical sweep for traditional keyboards, allowing for left/right hand keywells.
- Multi-modal sweeps with keymasks to implement offset thumb clusters or v-splits on monolithic keyboards
- Stem compatibility
- Cherry MX
- Kailh Choc v1 (have sample keycaps)
- Steelseries Apex
- Alps (have sample keycaps)
- Profiles
- Spherical
- ...does anyone like hard corners?
- redo the current profile so it doesn't take an hour to compile?
- Symbol-sets
- ? haven't thought this part through ?
This project is still in active development, and does not yet implement embedded legends. To achieve lettering, a text node can be linear_extrude()'ed as a child of a keycap, and it will be subtracted from the top surface. The components/legends/legend.scad file provides a controlled-size, self-scaling model, but requires a string parameter instead of taking children.
A sacrifical scaffold can be added to allow the post and keycap to be positioned independently of each other. This is currently set up to allow the keycap to telescope over the switch. This functionality is expected to be expanded to allow "island" type profiles, like the G20 profile, explicitly to support true-keywell keyboards.
