Welcome to the Onshape forum! Ask questions and join in the discussions about everything Onshape.
First time visiting? Here are some places to start:- Looking for a certain topic? Check out the categories filter or use Search (upper right).
- Need support? Ask a question to our Community Support category.
- Please submit support tickets for bugs but you can request improvements in the Product Feedback category.
- Be respectful, on topic and if you see a problem, Flag it.
If you would like to contact our Community Manager personally, feel free to send a private message or an email.
NEW Custom Features for Mesh
Hi everyone, I'm excited to announce a number of custom features I've recently written to help with mesh workflows. I've also got a new video tutorial up showing them each and demonstrating them in a workflow. You can get the features here.
Spline On Mesh lets you draw curves on a mesh
Copy and Split Mesh let's you extract a section of a mesh without modifying the original
Mesh Intersection Curve works like the native Intersection Curve feature, but accepts meshes
Mesh Projected Curve works like the native Projected Curve feature, but accepts meshes
Extract Mesh Points converts all mesh vertices into points. Useful for making box selections with Constrained Surface to diagnose why it's failing
Copy Mesh Face copies a mesh face, so you can focus on just that area and hide other clutter
Keep Face works like an inverted Delete Face. Not only for meshes, but handy. It's in a separate document, and you can get it here.
Comments
Nice work as always!
I watched the video and like it and the tools. Very nice set of tools.
This is like a loot box with a ton of gold in it! 😃
These are some sweet workflows. Thanks for sharing!
Learn more about the Gospel of Christ ( Here )
CADSharp - We make custom features and integrated Onshape apps! Learn How to FeatureScript Here 🔴
How the ___ is Evan not employed by Onshape? Seriously that is just awesome conceptually and works in a practical way.
I thought you were going to go a different route with it when you demo'd the 3D points w/plane offsets. I was thinking slice the mesh and create curves from the edge of the mesh for the setup of loft profiles. But that works nicely as well.
Well done. Bravo!!
Thanks, Y'all!
The Onsherpa | Reach peak Onshape productivity
www.theonsherpa.com
I also tried it with Lofts and it can work too, but would need to dial that in a bit before making a video so you don't have to watch me bumble through it. I know it can be done though because I've done it. No need to slice the mesh either since I modified Intersection Curve to accept meshes. All of the planes can be made with 1 3D points feature, and all of the curves with one Mesh Intersection Curve feature, then I'd use Freeform Spline or Routing Curve to make guide curves and loft it. I'm still looking into ways to automate that more into a single feature.
The Onsherpa | Reach peak Onshape productivity
www.theonsherpa.com
Crazy good stuff. Yeah I figured the intersection curve would work instead of split after watching the complete video. That's amazingly good stuff and will save gobs of time creating "usable" geometry from meshes. So much more advanced than when I first started working with meshes.
Perfect timing on dropping these, I was about to have to segment out this gross scan of a clay sculpture by hand in some other software and I simply refuse to learn Blender.
haha well good. You may still benefit from smoothing and trimming it up somewhere else though.
The Onsherpa | Reach peak Onshape productivity
www.theonsherpa.com
Bruh! 🤯
CAD Engineering Manager
Excellent video and features.
Twitter: @BryanLAGdesign
@EvanReese do you think it would be possible to add certain types of primitives or geometric instructions as "weights" or something to the tools that create a surface from a mesh?
Let's say you have scanned an object that you know is a revolved shape. However, you want to use the mesh to inform a kind of "average" revolved surface that is a good approximation of the real mesh, but is still geometrically a revolve. This could maybe work with prisms, spheres, planes etc. In the case of a revolve, I could imagine having a "click this to find the best axis for revolve" button and a "click this to specify an axis" button, too.
@EvanReese, great video, great work, great tools! In the video, you mention how to extend the ends of a curve tangentially. I was wondering why you didn't just use the native trim curve feature. Is there a reason for this?
Hmm, I could see room for more custom features for this. For example if you have a part that you know should be a revolve, it could create 12 sample splines on the mesh at "clock" locations in the revolve and average them then revolve it. I don't have enough personal use for it to write it on my own time, but I'm available for hire if you need it often.
The Onsherpa | Reach peak Onshape productivity
www.theonsherpa.com
Hmm, I don't remember why, but it's possible that I totally spaced out on that. Thanks @rafael_telgmann !
The Onsherpa | Reach peak Onshape productivity
www.theonsherpa.com
@romeograham in other software packages these kinds of approximation functions tend to run on face normals and angles and not vertex clouds. Featurescript only has mesh vertices exposed to it and not individual mesh triangles and face normals to my knowledge, so this would be more difficult to achieve with purely vertex logic alone. I've seen others suggest reconstructing the triangles from the vertex data but I would expect that to be challenging because a group of vertices has many different ways it could be triangulated.