Maybe of use to some people out there importing .stl meshes recently bought a 3D printer so been creating and downloading files to print. I have been busy learning and creating workbenches for the last few months, it has been an interesting exercise learning more about FreeCAD's python, Inkscape, Github. I have created a workbench that helps with the importing of stl files from the net, it brings the functionality hidden away to the user without having to resort to trawling the forums to find that bit of python code to do simple things.
It surprises me that FreeCad doesn't have a graphic properties Toolbar to just change the colours/transparency or line type, coming from a CATIA background it is always one i switch on and use a lot to change colours, transparency etc, i know that you can do this from the View option within the combo view, but does take a minimum of 4 clicks to change a colour of a object.
The mesh to solid may hang your machine if the stl object is too complex.......
The features so far implemented:-
- The ability to convert an imperial mesh/meshes to Metric and vis versus.
- Scale mesh down 50% and up 50%.
- Scale mesh a set factor.
- Scale Mesh to fit a 3D printer bed size.
- Generate a STL box the szie of the printer bed for reference.
- Convert a mesh/meshes to a solid.
- Make an object transparent.
- Make an objects transparancy Solid.
- Hide an object.
- Show an object.
- Change a group of objects to a random colour.
- Change colours of objects to 11 Colours.
- Change the line width to 2.0
- Show the bounding box of a Stl mesh.
- Define the printer bed size.
- Define the size of the object to be scaled from.
- Define the Scale factor for the mesh to be scaled, 0.5 = 50% scale 2.0 = 200% scale.
Works on 0.18 Release and tested it on 0.19Pre, considered to be alpha status....
Try it out and let me know of any issues...............