Offset Adjacent Faces

Cache_River_Mill

    Offset Adjacent Faces

Link:

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/725911b3d26eaad0ab951314/w/1915daf3a2ddbe886b6609db/e/60183b84fdc53387a76d037a

Created by: 

Michael Pascoe, Cache River Mill.

Description: 

This custom feature offsets the faces 

adjacent to the face you select.

Prerequisites: 

A solid body with more than one face.

Notes: 

1. Select a face.

2. Choose the offset thickness.

Application:

This feature is most useful when you need to edgeband an entire wall of various panels.

EvanReese

hey, cool idea! I can see this being super handy for you after seeing the gnarly cabinet setup you posted. To me, it might make more sense being called "Move adjacent faces" since it's really more similar to the move face command, right? I'll add it to my toolbar.

EvanReese

oh, and you know how much I appreciate that it already has an icon

Cache_River_Mill

Thanks! @Evan_Reese 

You're right, it is derived from the move command. I intentionally used the word "offset" so that it would be easy to find. I would not have thought to search for a feature called "move" even though it is technically moving the adjacent faces. 

EvanReese

Well in that case you're experiencing one of the luxuries of writing your own features; you get to do whatever you want! live it up. Seems like a good enough reason to me. It would be nice if we could add tags to features so you could search a similar work, like how searching "round" asks "did you mean fillet?"

EvanReese

Two thoughts on the UI:
1. it looks like you'd essentially like to have no limit on the number of faces selected since you set it to 100. If you just delete this, it won't have a limit

, "MaxNumberOfPicks" : 100

2. if you prefer to have a different default value (this feature seems like it's for clearances so the default is probably too big) you can replace this

      annotation { "Name" : "Offset" }
      isLength(definition.Offset, LENGTH_BOUNDS);

with this

      annotation { "Name" : "Offset" }
      isLength(definition.Offset, {(inch) : [0,YOUR_DEFAULT,1e5)} as LengthBoundSpec);

Cache_River_Mill

Thanks for the tip, much appreciated. I am getting an error when I replace the isLength. I'm very new to featurescript.

EvanReese

Try changing "defaultInput" to whatever number you want to be the default value. Looks like you also need to replace ")" with "]" which I also missed in my example 

      annotation { "Name" : "Offset" }
      isLength(definition.Offset, {(inch) : [0,2,1e5]} as LengthBoundSpec);

I'm still fairly new to it as well, so I can still remember all the silly stuff I got hung up on starting out (and still do as you can see).

Cache_River_Mill

That did it. Very nice 

Cache_River_Mill

I'm trying to put a manipulator on this. It would be nice if it were on one of the moved faces but I will take anywhere for now.

Could you give me another pointer? My code is not quite there, probably way off actually.

Here is the feature on branch B1
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/725911b3d26eaad0ab951314/w/c77dd9c784148297a7d5707a/e/6dee0c37cda944e0b01e5cb0  

emagdalenaC2i

@Cache_River_Mill You can use the Thicken feature to do something like that with a lot of other options

Cache_River_Mill

True, that would be another good method. Personally, I like how "move face" calculates extensions, thicken seems to have trouble sometimes depending on the application. Thicken would be great for adding edge band material to a part. Perhaps I could incorporate both as an option; remove the material, then add it back as a new part. 

EvanReese

Cache_River_Mill said:

True, that would be another good method. Personally, I like how "move face" calculates extensions, thicken seems to have trouble sometimes depending on the application. Thicken would be great for adding edge band material to a part. Perhaps I could incorporate both as an option; remove the material, then add it back as a new part. 

The thicken solution is good for some things, but isn't super robust to change imo. The selection needs to be redone if a new face is added, Also, the face IDs will change, but with the Move Face they remain, which would update anything downstream that's related. I also don't think the thicken method would work for just changing the edge faces, but not the caps of the hexagonal thing since it would cut in at a non-perpendicular angle. All that to say that @c@Cache_River_Mill will probably still get a lot of value out of this custom feature if it's something they do often.

re: manipulator. I've never used one, but it has something to do with the Manipulator Change Functions and Editing Logic stuff at the bottom of the page. Let us know how it goes.

EvanReese

Also, since you mentioned that you might need to "edge band an entire wall", you could probably make an option that selects all faces that are co-planar with the first selection to save time picking the rest.