Query for disconnected components created by opBoolean

lemon1324

Occasionally, doing a laser joint where three plates meet at a corner at non-right angles creates disconnected components like this (originally part of the light blue plate):


This bit is created when a boolean ends up also splitting a part.  I can't figure out how to query for this.  qCreatedBy doesn't work, since the body isn't "created" by the boolean, only the edges, which are then difficult to categorize.  I don't think qSplitBy would work as it's not an opSplit.  qEverything would only work if I assumed the only objects in the part studio were part of the joint, which is a terrible assumption (aside: what's a proper use of qEverything? It seems like all it does is create unnecessary possible dependencies where a more specific query could be constructed).

Assuming the disconnected bit is part of "definition.A" (a Query pointing to the light blue body), I noticed that qOwnerBody(qOwnedBy(definition.A)) returned two bodies in my MWE test document, but didn't work buried deeper inside my Laser Joint feature, where it only returned one body.  This query was placed immediately after the boolean in both cases.  The only difference I could tell was that in the working MWE, "definition" is actually the one built in the precondition, and in the non-working Laser Joint version was, effectively, "localDefinition.A" after assigning localDefinition.A = qNthElement(definition.parts, i) and passing localDefinition a few function calls deep.  Does qNthElement not necessarily return the same body if intervening non-body-creating operations happen?

The eventual goal is to detect the creation of disconnected components and warn the user or automatically delete small-enough bits and message the user.

konstantin_shiriazdanov

maybe obtain the edges by qCreatedBy(..., EntityType.EDGE), then obtain the bodies by qOwnerBody(), then possibly filter solids by qBodyType() and then qSubstraction(newSolidsQuery, initialSolidsQuery). By the way we definitely need some universal syntax to combine multiple query functions into one conveyor when output of prevous query function would be processed consistently without need for multiple and messy nesting.

ilya_baran

Yeah, as far as I understand (Lana is the boolean expert) a boolean doesn't "create" bodies, it splits existing ones.  So the original query you passed into the boolean should find all of the split bodies (which I think you discovered when trying qSubtraction).  For your case, I think qLargest on the original body query should work.

konstantin_shiriazdanov

maybe obtain the edges by qCreatedBy(..., EntityType.EDGE), then obtain the bodies by qOwnerBody(), then possibly filter solids by qBodyType() and then qSubstraction(newSolidsQuery, initialSolidsQuery). By the way we definitely need some universal syntax to combine multiple query functions into one conveyor when output of prevous query function would be processed consistently without need for multiple and messy nesting.

lemon1324

So qSubtraction(newSolidsQuery, initialSolidsQuery) always returns empty, since it looks like if I have a body A, and then split body A into A' (the one I want to keep) and B, evaluating the previously-saved query for A returns both bodies, A' and B.

I ended up using qCreatedBy to find edges, finding the owner bodies, and then sorting by size to find which parts are unlikely to be relevant.

ilya_baran

Yeah, as far as I understand (Lana is the boolean expert) a boolean doesn't "create" bodies, it splits existing ones.  So the original query you passed into the boolean should find all of the split bodies (which I think you discovered when trying qSubtraction).  For your case, I think qLargest on the original body query should work.