Fri, 04/01/2011 - 20:32
Hello Guys,
I would like to slice a modell in thin layers, so that when we make a pile of these layers again, we have the original 3D modell back again. I have attached an image for easier explanation.
I'm actually a bit lost with OpenCascade and don't understand much of what's happening and that's my main problem of why I can't move forward alone most of the time. I have managed to have the view inside a windows form, added the lights and I can load a .step Modell, so I have a resulting TopoDS_Shape. But now on how do I actually cut it, I'm completely lost! Any advice is much appreciated.
I have read a bit about BOPTools_DSFiller, but I'm still pretty much clueless on how do I insert a plane to make the cut on the modell. Or even if this is the correct and recommended way to do it.
Many, many thanks in advance!
Bernardo
Fri, 04/01/2011 - 21:18
Hi Bernardo,
At pythonocc, we already discussed this issue. You can have a look at the example named 'parallel_slicer', contributed by Jelle Feringa, available at: http://code.google.com/p/pythonocc/source/browse/trunk/src/examples/Leve...
This program performs the slice of a TopoDS_Shape (with the BRepAlgoAPI_Section class) and uses the multiprocessing module in order to improve performance on multicore machines.
I suggest you also have a look at the emcfab project (http://code.google.com/p/emcfab/, from Dave Cowden). They also use a pythonocc based slicer.
Best Regards,
Thomas
Wed, 04/06/2011 - 17:04
Hello Thomas Paviot,
Thank you very much for your reply. I have tried the first solution and it did work. The problem is, the result is really 2D, it's the intersection of a plane and the shape I want to slice. But, what I would like to do is make a thin intersection, so something with a small height, like 2mm. I made then a box instead of a plane and tried to use BRepAlgoAPI_Section to calculate the intersection, but the result I get is always blank, nada. Can this be done with BRepAlgoAPI_Section?
The 2nd solution I still didn't understand it completely and couldn't get it to work properly.
Many thanks in advance!
Best Regards,
Bernardo
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 04:35
Try replacing the BRepAlgoAPI_Section with BRepAlgoAPI_Common, which does a boolean intersection between two shapes.
Fri, 04/08/2011 - 13:03
Thanks Eric!!! This is exactly what I was looking for, I want to marry you!