FreeCAD: Sheet metal idea part 1

A sheet metal workbench will be a great addition to FreeCAD. In fact, there are several posts in the forum wishing for it.

Here I show my modest attempt to create such functionality for FreeCAD, in a very early stage of development.

I've divided the algorithm in three stages:

Part 1: Explore the shape
Part 2: Get the particular geometry of every face
Part 3: Unfold

Once it works correctly, I will try to code a modelling tool to add walls, perforations, and standard elements. (UPDATED: See sheet metal idea part 2 for improved algorithms and further info )

Part 1

As said above, here I`ll try to filter an input shape that meets some conditions, let's go.

First: create the 3d object

The sheet object is created manually at the moment. In a future, a specific tool can be developed to make it easier. If you want to jump this step, get the final model here

In a new document, create a sketch on XZ:

What we are going to build there is the profile of the folded sheet, so thickness and the bending radius are set here. 

We can start by drawing the folds:

They must be concentric and the inner one should measure the bending radius.

Now we draw the rest of it:

Applying the correspondent constrains you should obtain something like this:

Where we set the thickness of the sheet to 2 mm and the bending radius to 8 mm.

Now, extrude the sketch:

For example, 100 mm.

Now create a hole on top and cut the sheet to change its square form:

Pocket the sketch and this is the result:

The algorithm:

The algorithm works by exploring the shape with some variables in mind, like bending radius, thickness, 90º degree bending angles and that the part is based on XY plane.
Use it by selecting the shape on the tree-view and copy-paste the code.

Import the libraries:

import Part
import math as mt

Basic definitions needed:

Thickness = 2.0
BendingRadius = 8
k = 0.33
Alpha = 90.0

Get user selection:

SObj = Gui.Selection.getSelection()[0]
SObj_Shape = SObj.Shape

Create empty lists:

Faces = []
FlatFaces = []
CylFaces = []

Get all faces of the selected object and gather them in the list "Faces"

for i in SObj_Shape.Faces:
  Faces.append(i)

Classify the gathered faces by being flat or cylindrical:

for i in Faces:
  Surface = i.Surface
  if str(Surface) == "<Plane object>":
    FlatFaces.append(i)
  if str(Surface) == "<Cylinder object>":
    CylFaces.append(i)

At the moment we have all the faces of the shape classified by being cylindrical (bends) and flat. 

The next step is to remove the faces marked on the picture, because we do not need them

To do it:

RemoveFaces = []

for i in FlatFaces:
  for n in i.Edges:
    Len = n.Length
    if Len > Thickness*0.99 and Len < Thickness*1.01:
      RemoveFaces.append(i)
      break

It searches for faces which have one of their edges equal to the sheet thickness (with a tolerance, to ride off floats inaccuracy) and appends them to the new list RemoveFaces.

for i in RemoveFaces:
  FlatFaces.remove(i)

With that sentence the non desired faces are removed from the main list "FlatFaces"

The next faces to remove are the parallel ones, we need only one of them:

This works this way:

-Get the center of mass of a face

-Get the center of mass of another face

-Are them separated by the sheet thickness?

-If they are, append one of them to RemoveFaces

RemoveFaces = []
for i in FlatFaces:
  C1 = i.CenterOfMass
  for n in FlatFaces:
    C2 = n.CenterOfMass
    V12 = C2 - C1
    M12 = abs(V12.Length)
    if M12 > Thickness*0.99 and M12 < Thickness*1.01:
      FlatFaces.remove(n)
      break

for i in RemoveFaces:
  FlatFaces.remove(i)

To finish this post (I've more coded, future posts about this will come ;) ), a test to see what is in the list "FlatFaces":

def TESTF(FlatFaces):
  for i in FlatFaces:
    center = i.CenterOfMass
    Origin = center
    Origin_Vertex = Part.Vertex(Origin)
    Origin = App.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Feature","Test_Point")
    Origin.Shape = Origin_Vertex
    Origin_User_Name = Origin.Label
    FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument.getObject(Origin_User_Name).PointColor = (0.33, 0.00, 1.00)
    FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument.getObject(Origin_User_Name).PointSize = 5.00

The function input is a list containing faces. It draws a point at the center of mass of every face of the list, and if we apply it to our "FlatFaces" list we obtain:

That means we had a success at filtering the input shape!

Next steps are gather what is inside face (hole, squares...) and unfold.

Part 1 complete code:

"""
Javier Martinez Garcia, 2014
"""
import Part
import math as mt

Thickness = 2.0
BendingRadius = 8
k = 0.33
Alpha = 90.0

SObj = Gui.Selection.getSelection()[0]
SObj_Shape = SObj.Shape

Faces = []
FlatFaces = []
CylFaces = []

for i in SObj_Shape.Faces:
  Faces.append(i)

for i in Faces:
  Surface = i.Surface
  if str(Surface) == "<Plane object>":
    FlatFaces.append(i)
  if str(Surface) == "<Cylinder object>":
    CylFaces.append(i)

RemoveFaces = []

for i in FlatFaces:
  for n in i.Edges:
    Len = n.Length
    if Len > Thickness*0.99 and Len < Thickness*1.01:
      RemoveFaces.append(i)
      break

for i in RemoveFaces:
  FlatFaces.remove(i)

RemoveFaces = []
for i in FlatFaces:
  C1 = i.CenterOfMass
  for n in FlatFaces:
    C2 = n.CenterOfMass
    V12 = C2 - C1
    M12 = abs(V12.Length)
    if M12 > Thickness*0.99 and M12 < Thickness*1.01:
      FlatFaces.remove(n)
      break

for i in RemoveFaces:
  FlatFaces.remove(i)

def TESTF(FlatFaces):
  for i in FlatFaces:
    center = i.CenterOfMass
    Origin = center
    Origin_Vertex = Part.Vertex(Origin)
    Origin = App.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Feature","Test_Point")
    Origin.Shape = Origin_Vertex
    Origin_User_Name = Origin.Label
    FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument.getObject(Origin_User_Name).PointColor = (0.33, 0.00, 1.00)
    FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument.getObject(Origin_User_Name).PointSize = 5.00


TESTF(FlatFaces)

Feel free to criticize or point out anything you consider ;)

Bye!

FreeCAD + Arduino

Modifying shapes by reading sensors can create a lot of possibilities, for example, this video:

An Arduino DUE with a varible resistor commands a servo inside FreeCAD.


This post is about making what is shown in the video.

What you need:

-Linux

-Any Arduino board with serial connection

-Arduino ide

-FreeCAD

- My servo model

-Pyserial library ( sudo apt-get install python-serial )

-A look at the Oficial arduino and python guide ( not really needed, but my main source )

The idea:

-Print the value of the sensor by serial

-Create a function that reads the Arduino serial

-Create another function that, with the value of the serial, updates the object in FreeCAD

-Call them repetitively by a timer

The Arduino part:

At the video I'm using an Arduino DUE because it was handy, but an UNO board is valid too.

The electrical thing consists of connecting a variable resistor to the A0 pin, like the scheme:

Any variable resistor above 1kΩ will do the job, in the video I use a 4.7kΩ one. 

The code is quite simple:

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);                  /// Start serial at 9600 baud
  pinMode( A0, INPUT );                /// Set pin A0 as input
}

void loop()
{
  Serial.println( analogRead( A0 ) );  /// Print to serial A0 value
}

Initialize serial and then constantly print the sensor value.

The Python code:

This are the needed libraries:

import serial
from PySide import QtCore

Serial for reading the serial (obvious one) and PySide for the timer object.

To initialize the serial at 9600 baud pointed to the Arduino:

ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyACM0', 9600)

The Arduino serial should be in '/dev/ttyACM0' but sometimes it switches to '/dev/ttyACM1',
if you fire up the Arduino Ide and open the serial window, the path is at the window title.

The name "ser" now contains the serial, which we can read this way:

ser.readline()

That prints whatever the serial is saying.

The FreeCAD part:

We need a function that changes the position of the servo arm to the input value. From the arduino, we receive a number from 0 to 1024, a servo rotates ~180 degrees, so a conversion is needed.

def SERVO(valor):
  angle = valor*-180.0/1024.0
  Position = FreeCAD.Placement(App.Vector(12.5,12,53),App.Vector(0,0,1),angle) 
  FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.Fillet004.Placement = Position

The first line of the function SERVO is the 1024 to 180º conversion, the second and third ones do the position change of the FreeCAD object. Note that the servo arm is called "Fillet004".

You can test this function by giving values to it, like SERVO(200) or SERVO(1000), it should move.

The link:

The function SERIAL links  everything together:

servalue0 = 0 # avoid problems with serial initialization

def SERIAL():
  global servalue0
  hysteresis = 6.0 # to smooth the movement
  try:
    servalue = int(ser.readline()) # to int the serial value
  except:
    servalue = servalue0
  if servalue > servalue0 + hysteresis or servalue < servalue0 - hysteresis:
    SERVO(servalue) # update the servo position
    servalue0 = servalue # keep last value to check hysteresis

The timer:

To give it life we need to call SERIAL function repetitively with a timer:

timer = QtCore.QTimer()
timer.timeout.connect(SERIAL)
timer.start(1)

First line creates timer object, second one connects its signals to the SERIAL function and the third one makes it emit a signal every 1 ms.

Complete Python script:

If you just want to test it, create the Arduino circuit, download the servo model and copy paste this at FreeCAD console:

"""
Javier Martinez Garcia, 2014 
"""
import serial
from PySide import QtCore

try:
  ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyACM0', 9600)
  
except:
  ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyACM1', 9600)

def SERVO(valor):
  angle = valor*-180.0/1024.0
  Position = FreeCAD.Placement(App.Vector(12.5,12,53),App.Vector(0,0,1),angle) 
  FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.Fillet004.Placement = Position 

servalue0 = 0 # avoid problems with serial initialization

def SERIAL():
  global servalue0
  hysteresis = 6.0 # to smooth the movement
  try:
    servalue = int(ser.readline()) # to int the serial value
  except:
    servalue = servalue0
  if servalue > servalue0 + hysteresis or servalue < servalue0 - hysteresis:
    SERVO(servalue) # update the servo position
    servalue0 = servalue # keep last value to check hysteresis

timer = QtCore.QTimer()
timer.timeout.connect(SERIAL)
timer.start(1)

And this is all you need to repeat my video.
There are things that can be improved, for example the timer. Maybe using the threading library can give the same result.

About the possibilities, the communication can be bi-directional too, here I show realworld->FreeCAD, but the opposite is perfectly possible. And the FreeCAD objects attributes that can be changed do not need to be exclusively placement, but color or even parametric models.

Just imagine.

Bye!

FreeCAD: Animated Spring

Not really a spring, but..

... this script creates a helix object and constantly adjust its pitch and height to create a compression-like effect.
As always, the function that calculates and commands the changes is called repetitively by a timer.

Video:

While the animation is running, you can change the values of pitch, length and compression by just typing in, for example:

Pitch = 3

Compression = 0.1   # Relative to the length of the "spring" 

The code:

from __future__ import division 

from PyQt4 import QtCore
import math as mt
import FreeCADGui
App.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Helix","Helix")
App.ActiveDocument.Helix.Pitch=5.00
App.ActiveDocument.Helix.Height=20.00
App.ActiveDocument.Helix.Radius=5.00
App.ActiveDocument.Helix.Angle=0.00
App.ActiveDocument.Helix.LocalCoord=0
App.ActiveDocument.Helix.Style=1
App.ActiveDocument.Helix.Label='Helix'
FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument.getObject("Helix").LineColor = (1.00,0.67,0.00)

i = 0
Length = 20
Pitch = 5
Compression = 0.5

def Spring():
  global i, Length, Pitch, Compression
  
  i+=0.01

  R = Pitch / Length
  IH = Compression*Length*mt.cos(i)
  P = Pitch + (R*IH)
  App.ActiveDocument.Helix.Height = Length + IH
  App.ActiveDocument.Helix.Pitch = P
  
  if i == 1000:
    i=0


timer = QtCore.QTimer()
timer.timeout.connect(Spring)
timer.start(5)

Bye!
 :D