Help Point for Split in FeatureScript?

jelte_steur814

Hi,
I'm working on an alternative split body feature that first creates a copy of the part and splits both of those so attributes/properties and ID's are more stable in referencing their part (original or new).
This is relevant for 'keep both sides' splits. I've often had a upstream feature of the split tool change direction and therefore the split parts changing identity. then there's no way of repairing that easily.

in the split curve feature, there's a neat 'Help point' that can be used to indicate what side of the split tool is meant to be used. this makes it even less stable to upstream changes in the split tool definition.
However that HelpPoint is fed into 'opMoveCurveBoundary.fs' so i cannot see how it's working. 'opSplitPart' doesn't allow this argument. Is there a way to create such a HelpPoint? I guess more specifically: how to evaluate the position of a HelpPoint with respect to a split tool?

Here's the first version without Help Point. can be repaired by reversing direction if it flips.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/225c3300bd62e1b7109036b8/w/4fbbd3883225f886a9f4364e/e/3f15cf9428943ce74bd290ae?renderMode=0&uiState=65faba6cea6d9168aeab9c8c 

jelte_steur814

FYI @Jason_S: We've discussed a feature like this in a support ticket a while ago. i finally got around learning Featurescript and building it.

Konst_Sh

My guess is that splitting at least partially relies on the normal direction of tool surface or faces to define the identity of child bodies, so if your goal is splitting disambiguation you can try using this function from onshape std:

/**
 * Reverses the orientation of sheet bodies.
 * @param id : @autocomplete `id + "flipOrientation"`
 * @param definition {{
 *   @field bodies {Query} : Sheet bodies whose orientation should be flipped.
 * }}
 */
export const opFlipOrientation = function(context is Context, id is Id, definition is map)
{
    return @opFlipOrientation(context, id, definition);
};

In this sense the reference point can be used to define the correct side of surface normal, when you picking the point and using it to detect if it is located on the positive side of normal or not and if it is on the negative side you flipping the tool surface normal

S1mon

I run into body ID issues all the time in my typical workflows. Mostly it's stuff that I can control if I'm careful - keeping the order of surfaces in a merge correct, or the order of bodies in a boolean. However there are some things like Thicken or stuff like deleting a face, converting a solid to a surface and then Enclosing or Boolean adding a surf to create a solid again where the IDs are changed. As you've found Split can cause a lot of issues.

In the past I saw something where someone mentioned using some dummy parts early in their feature tree that would carry the ID. I think the idea was you make a simple block, give it a name, etc, and then Boolean add to it at the end to give the intended ID to whatever body. I can't find the post right now, but there really needs to be a better way where by IDs are managed. I spend far too much time renaming parts in part studios, and then replacing parts in assemblies, and fixing mates in assemblies. It feels like there should be a more direct way of keeping a list of the intended parts list for a part studio, and then I'm ok manually saying that this meta data from this table is connected to this body in the studio, but I don't want to manually retype names, etc....

jelte_steur814

Thanks @Konst_Sh
that would help and be cleaner than of flipping the front/back of the splits.
but how would one go about whether the reference point is on the positive side of the tool?

Konst_Sh

jelte_steur814 said:

but how would one go about whether the reference point is on the positive side of the tool?

For that you will be able to flip the normal of the tool surface if the reference point is on the negative side

ilya_baran

I was recently doing some work in this direction -- it's not fully productized, but the code may be useful.  https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3ddaebb626065ce19bb3ea76/w/4f0a4aed4dc7038a26c85e52/e/22d578c2ef5a0beac0d3dc51  See also here: https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/23021/new-feature-split-with-flip