Boolean Intersect with MESH

john_mcclary

The end game is to convert a MESH into a solid.

By using a boolean intersect to create a part, that should let us pick and choose pieces or sections of a mesh to convert.
Rather than having it attempt to convert an entire mesh.
Also that would allow us to purposefully ignore some parts of a mesh that we know are too complex to convert. (Self intersection errors from a bad scan for example)

This is lieu of manually creating sketches and tracing / extruding from a mesh, for a more streamlined workflow.

lougallo

@john_mcclary We do this today in FeatureScript but not in our current boolean. Boolean of a solid and a mesh becomes a mesh.  Would this work?

john_mcclary

Im in vegas and too drunck to understand, ill see in a week

tim_hess427

@lougallo - What you mention may work for a project I'm working on, but I don't see anything that looks like what you describe here: https://www.onshape.com/features/custom-features

Is this mesh-capable boolean public somewhere? 

Thanks. 

MBartlett21

@tim_hess427
@lougallo
@john_mcclary


Here is a Boolean FeatureScript that I put together that supports solid parts, surfaces and meshes (I just updated it to support meshes).
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/84d939daceef6a928b8abcba

@lougallo
When has Onshape supported booleaning of meshes since?

owen_sparks

MBartlett21 said:

@lougallo
When has Onshape supported booleaning of meshes since?

WHAT NOW???!!!

S1mon

I tried the Boolean Featurescript. Is there any way to adjust the mesh density of the non-mesh objects? I subtracted a normal OnShape cylinder from a mesh (an imported .STL of a mechanical part). The cylinder has 16 facets on the curved part, and I can't find a way to increase the resolution.

jon_sorrells

MBartlett21 said:

When has Onshape supported booleaning of meshes since?

Release 1.87

S1mon said:

Is there any way to adjust the mesh density of the non-mesh objects?

No, there's currently no way to adjust that.

Kirbyfire73

Can you make a tutorial for this? I am a high school student so I don't really understand this.

tsimon57

MBartlett21   Wow your FeatureScript totally solved my problem. I was trying to do booleans in Meshmixer and they always came out ragged. Your FearureScript keeps the original shapes and let me merge an STL with OnShape additions! Thanks a million!

colin_durrans

The Boolean Script is AWESOME, just getting going using it to tweak a Pi Zero Camera Case I found over on Thingiverse.

New to OnShape, it took me a moment to understand how to importand use the custom feature. Thanks @MBartlett21 for sharing this.

I've used Inscribed Polygon in sketch, as an alternative to circle, to control the facets on the hole I'm cutting - the example below with 64 sides. It's easy to tweak the Inscibed Polygon to tweak the facets you need - the solution jumped out at me from the image @S1mon posted

The old part for reference... next step: easy champers or radii

brunono553

Thank you SOOO much @MBartlett21 ! You saved my life today !

GWS50

brunono553 said:

Thank you SOOO much @MBartlett21 ! You saved my life today !

Agreed this is just a fantastic feature script, thank you thank you

fedario

Thank you @MBartlett21 your script is pure awesomeness, many thanks

mithkr

Thank you @MBartlett21 for your script. Would it be possible in future to increase the resolution for curves, when boolean mesh with solid? Maybe the export settings for STL files could be used to define the resolution. Currently I need to workaround the low resolution by exporting the solid, which I want to bool with a mesh, as STL file. Than I import the STL file as mesh to use it with your FS to boolean the mesh with the reimported mesh to have high resolution facets for any kind of curve. Or maybe your script could do this solid to mesh conversion in place in case a mesh should be boolean with a solid.