Arch Fence

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furti
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Arch Fence

Post by furti »

I'm currently working on a Fence Tool for the Arch workbench.
I need a quick way to preview some different types of fences.

The Draft Workbench already has the PathArray that can repeat a object on a given Path and align it correctly. But it was a bit cumbersome to use it for Fence Building. So I decided to create a new Fence Tool.
Under the hood it uses the logic of the PathArray. To make this possible I extracted the logic into a new "Draft.calculatePlacementsOnPath" function. This returns a list of FreeCAD.Placement objects one can use to place Objects accordingly. So the PathArray functionality is now easy to use from Python modules or macros.

Now to the Tool itself.

One has to create a single section of the fence
Section.png
Section.png (70.11 KiB) Viewed 5282 times
A single Fencepost
Post.png
Post.png (16.53 KiB) Viewed 5282 times
And the Path the fence should follow
Path.png
Path.png (15.77 KiB) Viewed 5282 times
Select the objects in the given Order and start the Fence tool. And it will create a full Fence out of this.
fence.png
fence.png (36.91 KiB) Viewed 5282 times
I have to check if it is possible to trim sections on the fly to fit into smaller gaps like here in the Corner. Then I can make a first pull request for it.
corner_too_long.png
corner_too_long.png (13.09 KiB) Viewed 5282 times
I think in the future the tool might be Extended to work like the window tool. Simply create a Sketch of one section and one fencepost and define some properties like "Glass Panel" and Colors and the tool will build a full fence out of this Information.

Hope this might be of use for some of you :)
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furti
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Re: Arch Fence

Post by furti »

@yorik
Right now I do not set the IfcType of the Fence object. Do you know if there is a dedicated IfcType for a fence?
carlopav
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Re: Arch Fence

Post by carlopav »

furti wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 12:21 pm
That's interesting Furti! I'm sorry, i couldnt resist to try to model it with existing tools :roll: :
Cattura.JPG
Cattura.JPG (54.58 KiB) Viewed 5231 times
I used the wall object to make the upper and the lower profile, and two path arrays of structures to make the fenceposts.

In the workflow there were three things that make it the process coumbersome:
EDIT (- the path array have some problems to correctly rotate the fenceposts (at least in my model), if set aligned the object is not just rotated, but completly aligned to the base wire;) my fault, it's possible, just have to deal with placements and rotations :) sorry for the noise;
- it's not possible to set the distance between objects but just the total number of them;
- it's not possible to set if the fencepost is repeated every base object segment start/end or to set a general rule;

Anyway, i found your attempt very promising, and maybe it could help to improve the Draft path array tool too!
PS, since it seems your tool use other arch tools improving their usability, wouldn't it better fit the BIM workbench general pourpouses?

thx!
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follow my experiments on BIM modelling for architecture design
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furti
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Re: Arch Fence

Post by furti »

carlopav wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 3:45 pm there were three things that make it the process coumbersome
Yes this where the reasons why I created this tool :D plus the repeating steps when you want to model multiple fences.
carlopav wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 3:45 pm it's not possible to set if the fencepost is repeated every base object segment start/end or to set a general rule
This is not possible with the current implementation of the fence tool either. But I already thought about it. I think this might be fairly easy to implement in the future. Just another Parameter to the draft patharray function i hope :lol:
carlopav wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 3:45 pm since it seems your tool use other arch tools
Currently it does not depend on other arch tools. It only depends on the Draft functionality.
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Re: Arch Fence

Post by carlopav »

furti wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 6:03 pm This is not possible with the current implementation of the fence tool either. But I already thought about it. I think this might be fairly easy to implement in the future. Just another Parameter to the draft patharray function i hope :lol:
Cool!
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bitacovir
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Re: Arch Fence

Post by bitacovir »

furti wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 12:18 pm Hope this might be of use for some of you
Any tool that facilitates or simplifies a process is welcome.
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furti
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Re: Arch Fence

Post by furti »

I created a pull request for the Fence tool now https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/2151
I will create a page in the wiki for it when I have some time to do so.

The tool is not 100% perfect for now, but I think one can do some nice stuff with it already.

For example this path
path_extended.png
path_extended.png (11.35 KiB) Viewed 5085 times
creates this fence
fence_arc.png
fence_arc.png (21.17 KiB) Viewed 5085 times
carlopav
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Re: Arch Fence

Post by carlopav »

Nice!
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Kunda1
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Re: Arch Fence

Post by Kunda1 »

make sure this gets in to the 0.19 Release notes as well :)
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yorik
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Re: Arch Fence

Post by yorik »

Just merged it.
This is cool! You know what it could be awesome for too? Curtain walls.
I've playing with that in revit recently, and it's quite a nice feature. You draw it like a wall, but in fact it's a window. It has a glass panel, and a top and bottom frame, and vertical mullions. Just like your fence, but with a glass panel inside...
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