#2683 Refinement transformation

[wmayer]

As it looks like this property will be available in a lot of places. This property changes topology therefore we will need to make end users aware of this fact somehow (caution and understanding is still needed). Likely to mention it in documentation on the Wiki, provide the info through forum help once the questions will be asked on what is going on. And i was thinking it makes sense to provide such info in tootlip of the property.

In short playing with this property will result in things like sketch being mapped to the wrong face after.

But this can happen with many properties of other features, too. The big improvement with this PR is that it now doesn't depend any more on user settings if a model gets broken or not. A user now has to actively change the property. The only exception are old project files where the Refine property does not exist yet.

[chrisb]

The big improvement with this PR is that it now doesn't depend any more on user settings if a model gets broken or not.

That's what is important to me: to have a model that is independent from the currently and here set properties.

[triplus]

The big improvement with this PR is that it now doesn't depend any more on user settings if a model gets broken or not.

This is an improvement i agree. Compared to the user set setting in the Preferences.

But this can happen with many properties of other features, too.

Yes this can happen with any property that changes the topology. But i do feel we where a bit conservative with adding such properties in Part/PartDesign workflow in the past? That is why likely Refine feature strategy worked good for us. As it is more conservative approach. You have a feature and you would like to refine it. Therefore you add a refine feature. And you can't just change that after. Without deleting the refine feature first. With property you can do that easily. Switch between two versions of topology.

But i do understand the pressure to use less conservative approach is building up over the years. And we will likely need to give in before any topology/geometry based solution will exist in FreeCAD. That would mitigate the problem when you change the property of a feature that changes the topology.

Therefore if you are leaning towards the idea we should do the refine property now. I don't have any objections. We who understand what it does will try to get the message through to end users asking. To explain on why something happened when the property changed. And i guess with less conservative approach workbenches like Part/PartDesign could gain more parametrically controlled "high level" features. And not for whole development cycles to be just about plumbing work. But for sure that will put the pressure on finally tackling some changing topology related solution that works for us. As the less conservative approach needs it more than ever and the situation could get a bit messy without such solution.