Maybe an image (attached) will show you better what i'm trying to say : )
This will place the rotation axis to the 'right' place, where i draw a construction line, and the Extrusion will begin from there.
EDIT: If the rotation of a face must be 'settle' in one single edge, this edge (axix) needs to be offset back by half of the distance between the 2 paralel edges.
Hi Carlos, please give the attached version a try, note that this version is named RotateAndExtrudeFace2 with a 2 on the end so you must also set up your shortcut as RotateAndExtrudeFace2 as well. On this one instead of selecting an edge the script automatically looks for parallel edges in the face and shows you the median lines between them. Then instead of picking an edge of the face you pick one of those median lines to be the rotation axis.
Also there was a bug in the first version script when the script gathered the end points of the boundary, just by luck the bug didn't happen to impact the functionality. But if someone wants to use this script as a reference for gathering the endpoints of a trimming boundary loop in the proper order, use the one in this script rather than the previous one.
> ...Also there was a bug in the first version script....
With this last version of the script, it seems that we lost the chance to select one of the normal boundary edges of the selected face,
because now it only permits to select one of the median lines between them.
Could you please create a combined version of the two scripts ?
That is, a script with an option to choose the working mode ?
I think that the overall workflow wouldn't get worse :
1) Select the face to rotate
2) The scripts will be executed in its most recent "mode" used.
3) Every time that we change the working mode, by selecting the UI option, the script resets its calculation and returns to the initial state,
that is, simply having the face selected and asking the user to select the appropriate edge or median lines.
Hi Marco, it's feasible but would require additional work... If you need the functionality of both versions then a simple way to get that without any more work involved is to just have both of them installed and set up 2 shortcut keys, one to call the original version and a second shortcut key for the new one. That's why I named the second one with a different name, so you could easily have both of them if desired.
If this was going to be one of the built in tools that was going to be frequently used by the average user, then it would be different, it would make more sense to potentially polish it up like you're describing. But it's not in that category, these are special purpose tools to be used for some very specific workflows. I'm happy to work on such tools to help save someone a lot of time, but I don't think that doing the combination like you describe would result in any actual time savings for Carlos compared to just having 2 shortcut keys. From what I can understand so far about his workflow I don't think he'll need to use the first version at all, but we'll see what he says.
It is just normal though that special purpose tools won't receive the same level of polish as ones that are used by a lot of people.
If it's mainly the bug in the first version that I mentioned that you're worried about, that bug does not happen to affect that version, it's only if you extracted the endpoint gathering part of that script and tried to use it for different stuff that the bug could cause problems. That's how I found out about it since the second version uses the endpoints for more detailed things and so the loop endpoint gathering had to be corrected for the second version to work.
Hi Carlos, I've also noticed in your examples that it might be most common for you to use the longer median with a rotation of 90 degrees for this stuff (I think you mentioned that at one point too).
If that's the case then please give the attached third version a try, note that its command name now ends with a "3" so make sure your shortcut for launching it matches that.
This version gets the rotation axis as a median line like the 2nd version, but it automatically selects the longest axis direction and also automatically rotates it by 90 degrees and so does away with even more steps, just select the face, run the command and bam! you're extruding at 90 degrees right away. I hope it will speed this process up for you considerably.
If you do need to sometimes rotate around the shorter axis or do rotations other than 90 degrees, then just have the 2nd version set up on a shortcut key as well so you can use it when you need to do those things.
Only the angle rotation (on mouse pointer) behavior is a bit odd but i'm getting the hang of it.
It needs a bit of pratice, meanwile i just input a angle number, or try to snap to a vert of solid.
Maybe the cause is the central axis of the face is been used, instead of a face's edge.
9 times in 10 its a 90ยบ angle i need of the selected face.
You're welcome Carlos - also don't miss version #3 above which automatically rotates by 90 degrees skipping the rotation step entirely, hopefully you should be able to use that version for your 90% use case.
For the version #2 rotation the mouse will track along a plane from the midpoint of the median line so try moving your mouse around that midpoint area rather than near one of the ends of the edges and it should probably make more sense.
and first of all I wish to thank you for your very clear reply.
> It is just normal though that special purpose tools won't receive the same level of polish as ones that are used by a lot of people.
Regarding this point I totally agree with you. J have nothing further to add.
Just for a little javascript practice, I will try to create my own version with all these three different versions you wrote, combined together,
and if I i will get good result I will certainly share it with all of you.
I believe the #1 with an offset number (x and y) set by the user, could mimic bend allowence for sheet metal. Just the unfold had to be manual, if the script placed a curve on center of the offset, and this curve is used to set the rotation. MOI's snaping tools are great for this.
Ok Carlos. As soon as I have some free time I'll try to assemble this type of script.
> I believe the #1 with an offset number (x and y) set by the user,
> could mimic bend allowence for sheet metal. Just the unfold had to be manual,
> if the script placed a curve on center of the offset, and this curve is used to set the rotation. MOI's snaping tools are great for this.
Could you be more specific and upload some images, or (better) a video, showing what exactly you mean ?
There is one ultimate guide about press brake, it mentioned everything about press brake as well as the bending operation, hope it can be helpful for you. Here is it: https://machinemfg.com/press-brake-ultimate-guide/
Here an example of my sheet metal workflow for parametrics parts
The workfloor is :
1 - Simple 2D part's drawing . ( complex part's can be import from SOLVESPACE )
2 - Part's extrusion
3 - Part's 3D connection/assembly with junctions .
4 - Final boolean union
5 - Layout with Make2D4Views function
6 - 3D part's export in STEP , SKP ...
7 - Layout export in PDF
example2.jpg
