LaserIt Feature Release

maximilian_schommer

Hi Onshapers!

I just finished this feature called LaserIt, which takes an arbitrary 3D solid and slices it to be laser cuttable (or some other 2D planar machining technique). Here are some images of it in action! I'd love to hear what you think!

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/09632fd9133d2544c5913f81/w/c7bf32ba1c3d35b3a80bef2d/e/c177277e70ccd43015025214


Maximilian Schommer

owen_sparks

Now that's cool, I'll have a look tomorrow.

bruce_williams

Thanks for sharing the script! We will be able to use this for 'egg crate' ribbing on large patterns.  We CNC router ribs like this.
 A couple improvements would be to have a clearance value on joints, and an offset from the part surface.  

lemon1324

Nice work!

One improvement I'd suggest is to guarantee that the resulting laser-cut structure remains within the defining solid body - say I want to make a supporting structure for a dome, for instance.  I note that for your sphere, you're extruding the elements in a consistent direction, so that some of the parts are outside the original defining sphere.

I'm not sure whether the best way to approach this would be to calculate that yourself, or if using sheet metal features and boolean with the original solid makes this easier for parts with complex curvatures.

maximilian_schommer

@bruce_williams I'll be running some tests with it and will definitely add clearance values on the joints. 

@lemon1324 I didn't think of sheet metal, I'll take a look at the documentation later, but it seems like it might be pretty easy to integrate with the current pipeline. 

owen_sparks

Looks great. The following is offered only as improvement orientated feedback not criticism.

(a) I concur with @lemon1324 , for this to really be useful the parts generated must wholly remain within the seed part .

(b) I'd suggest that it would be nice to be able to specify a central plane and build symmetrically out from that.  For symmetrical seed parts it seems "wrong" that the output is not symmetrical.

(c) I'd love to see a checkbox that lays the parts out flat for easy conversion to dxf.

I have a suspicion this might form the base feature for building a driving sim bucket seat in the not too distant future

Cheers, Owen S.

lemon1324

@owen_sparks

For (c), take a look at the Auto Layout FS I'm maintaining: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/576e01dbe4b0cc2e7f46a55d

It uses a rectangular bin-packing algorithm, so it's not great for shapes that are not close-ish to rectangular, but it's convenient.

TimRice

Awesome feature! I have some user experience suggestions:

1. Perhaps consider changing the default input for Material thickness boxes. In my own use cases most material I use is 1/4 or 1/2" inch so a default material thickness of 1 inch is a bit large. More documentation on creating your own bounds can be found here https://cad.onshape.com/FsDoc/library.html#module-valueBounds.fs

2. At first I wasn't sure what was allowed in the Reference frame input box. Perhaps changing the wording to Mate connector would tell the user exactly what is necessary to select.

Hendrik_

@maximilian_schommer
Thanks for this!  
Haven’t tried it yet but I’ve been waiting for such a feature in Onshape for a long time.
One more Fusion360 temptation removed...