New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

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dimitar
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by dimitar »

Another little paper cut - the units entered in the spreadsheet seem to use mm by default. It would be useful the the spreadsheet units adopt the unit system set up in the settings.
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yorik
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by yorik »

dimitar wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:18 pm I'm aching for some curtain wall options in freecad - simple panel based subdivison based on straight verticals, on having the same number of divisions on bottom and on top, and some diagrid options, as a starting point. I suppose that part/assembly logic could be used for panelisation or the same idea as doors/windows.
Agreed. I've been struggling a bit with that already, it's quite complicated as not every surface can produce a nice, ruled curtain wall https://mastodon.social/web/statuses/101703380980633781

There are some simple workarounds already, though, ex: 1) Make a Draft rectangle, 2) Subdivide it by using the columns and rows properties, 3) Use Part 2D offset on it twice (one with fill property on and one off) to obtain frame and panel faces, that you can then extrude with any other tool (arch panel, arch structure...) Similar things could be done for other kinds of geometry too I guess.
dimitar wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 3:03 pm Another little paper cut - the units entered in the spreadsheet seem to use mm by default. It would be useful the the spreadsheet units adopt the unit system set up in the settings.
You can change the unit manually, but yes I agree I think. However, this could make the values change when the file is opened on another machine... Might be dire consequences
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by dimitar »

yorik wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 4:11 pm]

There are some simple workarounds already, though, ex: 1) Make a Draft rectangle, 2) Subdivide it by using the columns and rows properties, 3) Use Part 2D offset on it twice (one with fill property on and one off) to obtain frame and panel faces, that you can then extrude with any other tool (arch panel, arch structure...) Similar things could be done for other kinds of geometry too I guess.
How would that type of workflow work on a surface? For example, I have sketch made with the Sketcher that I would like to position on a surface.

I do this quite often in Grasshopper, what I usually do revolves around get uv surface planes. Even if the surface is trimmed, I usually start with getting lines that go in a direction that will stay - horizontal, vertical, or diagonal along the uv of a surface. Once I have those lines, I subdivide them based on a distance and create a grid. To make sure I can offset the grid points in the correct direction, I find the closes point on a surface to the grid points and use the uv surface point normal direction to modify the grid.

Just looking at the forecast documentation and perhaps the arch axis or the grid tools could be extended to work on a surface, as a general uv subdvision? It could be based on division numbers or on length
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

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not sure if this is a good idea, but I am posting quite a bit on the general help forum, but i think it may be useful to record my beginner queries in one place. I am currently testing freecad for the parametric sketching capabilites. It feels really nice to work with constraints - and the ease of manipulation is within constrained sketches provides an opportunity for a perfect sketching tool for iterations of design options. It feels more intuitive than doing the same in grasshopper, as in grasshopper it takes a while to set up, and if something needs to be changed later down, chances are most of the complex script needs to be rebuild.

Also, i am importing via IGES to rhino, and so far, the result is spot on. In rhino, it's been always a struggle of preserving arcs, especially when needing to edit them, wheras with sketcher, it's a breeze.

So this brings me to my question, which i posted on the general help forum.
dimitar wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 12:05 am is there a way to creating caps of planar holes for creating a solid, while maintaining the hierarchy of an open shell-like shape? I've explored the part -> advanced utility to create shapes but it's cumbersome to manually select all the edges, and it doesn't seem to preserve the history. And the arch -> utilities -> close holes fails and gives an error that it's failed to create faces from wires
Last edited by dimitar on Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by chrisb »

Please don't cross post!
A Sketcher Lecture with in-depth information is available in English, auf Deutsch, en français, en español.
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by paullee »

Furti seem exploring more ways to use sketch as base of Arch Object with additional information to be stored therein - with abdullah's PR

There are a few post also demonstrating its usage.


I like e.g dimenional constraints which help in design changes / development ... But currently there are limitations.

I remember you talk Master Sketch, link to external is to my knowledge a problemm though I try to overcome it (very complicated for me as python beginner / no knowledge about c++) with abdullah's earlier help ...
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by yorik »

dimitar wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 6:19 pm Just looking at the forecast documentation and perhaps the arch axis or the grid tools could be extended to work on a surface, as a general uv subdvision? It could be based on division numbers or on length
There are several ways we can start attacking the problem indeed. One thing I quickly tested here that works well, is to create a series of perpendicular planes, then cut the original surface with it:
Screenshot from 2019-07-12 12-09-58.png
Screenshot from 2019-07-12 12-09-58.png (161.47 KiB) Viewed 1980 times
We could do that automatically pretty easily.. Have "Curtain Wall" object that would take a base shape (a surface of any kind), and the following properties:
- U normal direction (a vector indicating the normal direction to the U plane)
- U interval
- U start offset
- V normal direction (a vector indicating the normal direction to the V plane)
- V interval
- V start offset
Then we could easily calculate the planes, and do the cut.

The next steps are a bit tricky (create panels and mullions), if the panes are non planar, Part 2D/3D offsets wont work. But we could find different ways to do that (keep track of the intersection wires, do extrusions manually, etc). Or, offer ways to "planify" (triangulate, basically). Many ways to extend further...
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dimitar
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by dimitar »

chrisb wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 6:04 am Please don't cross post!
Note taken. Won't repeat.
yorik wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 3:18 pm There are several ways we can start attacking the problem indeed. One thing I quickly tested here that works well, is to create a series of perpendicular planes, then cut the original surface with it:

Screenshot from 2019-07-12 12-09-58.png

We could do that automatically pretty easily.. Have "Curtain Wall" object that would take a base shape (a surface of any kind), and the following properties:
- U normal direction (a vector indicating the normal direction to the U plane)
- U interval
- U start offset
- V normal direction (a vector indicating the normal direction to the V plane)
- V interval
- V start offset
Then we could easily calculate the planes, and do the cut.

The next steps are a bit tricky (create panels and mullions), if the panes are non planar, Part 2D/3D offsets wont work. But we could find different ways to do that (keep track of the intersection wires, do extrusions manually, etc). Or, offer ways to "planify" (triangulate, basically). Many ways to extend further...
That would be a good beginning indeed. As an initial subdivision. If we start out with a grid, it would be nice to manually adjust some interval lines after the initial grid.

As for the next, there would, it would be good to have a planar option, where it creates a best fit plane along the 4 points of the grid and project and fit a profile along the plane. Or project a profile along the center point of the subgrid onto a surface, if the intention is to keep the underlying curvature of the base surface.

I am looking a bit into the API, and I am wondering how would one do something along these lines in freecad?

Image

I've found a useful post here that's starting to show how to expose the surface normal, but i am not sure how to extract the face boundary and scale it along the normal point, move it along the normal Z, and then loft between the new and the original: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=9465
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dimitar
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by dimitar »

Here is an interesting video, demonstrating how Catia's curtain wall tool works.

phpBB [video]
Last edited by dimitar on Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by dimitar »

paullee wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 1:50 pm Furti seem exploring more ways to use sketch as base of Arch Object with additional information to be stored therein - with abdullah's PR

There are a few post also demonstrating its usage.


I like e.g dimenional constraints which help in design changes / development ... But currently there are limitations.

I remember you talk Master Sketch, link to external is to my knowledge a problemm though I try to overcome it (very complicated for me as python beginner / no knowledge about c++) with abdullah's earlier help ...
Do you mind referencing some of those posts? i tried searching for furth and sketch, but i get a lot of info about fence, but not arch objects
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