To complete an analysis of wall panels I would need to extract the -Y plane in the attached model. Wall panels like this are beams in Tekla, so I must import the complete solid to get the openings that are important. After importing, the panel is deconstructed using the Brep, and face normals are created. Usng the dotproduct to compare normals I intended to filter the planes using a cull pattern. Most of this is working, but the cull pattern is not working as I expect. I am sure it is a simple problem, but I am not having much luck due to inexperience. Suggestion or is there a more efficient way for this?
Tekla1.3dm (43.3 KB)
Tekla1.gh (20.4 KB)
Hi Brad,
I don’t have your wall panel Tekla component so can’t see what they would look like - but this should be solvable anyway.
First, instead of the Face Normals component I would use the Evaluate Surface component, reparameterize the faces and then evaluate at point (0.5, 0.5).
This is because the Face Normals component will turn the surface into a triangulated mesh with lots of faces and that gets harder to manage.
Then the false/true list that you show would need to go into the “Cull pattern” input instead of the “List” input of the Cull Pattern component. And for the “List” input you connect what you want to filter - presumably the faces from the Deconstruct Brep component. Now you should have the faces/surfaces in the -Y direction at the output.
Cheers,
Sebastian
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That works great except for the cull still does not work. By listing the indicies needed, the model is correct. Listing the indicies is not ideal since most time I will have far more faces to deal with. I need to do more reading on the cull routine it seems.
I am very glad you mentioned the mesh problems with the method I was trying. I need to be able to extract the opening sizes and complete a number of other tasks to automate some design steps.
Thanks for the advice.
No, keep the Cull Pattern component, this is what I meant:
-b
Yes, I figured that is what you meant. I am not sure why the code below is not working, so I was not going to bother you anymore. I am sure it is a me mistake.
No worries, maybe this? Would probably need to get your input data and that script to show it more clearly.
Cheers,
-b
If you don’t mind taking a look, that would help a lot. I need to maintain the data structure so I can filter holes that are too small. I attached the rhino model with the panels baked into the file.
EDIT: I had attached incorrect files.
precast-test.3dm (60.0 KB)
precast-test.gh (11.9 KB)
Still no data I’m afraid, but looking at that again you probably want to use the Smaller Than component for the comparison - otherwise you’ll get everything except the surfaces you’re interested in.
-b
I see what I had done. Your solution solved the problem anyway. I need to understand the pattern tool better. Now I can continue with the problem. The goal is to automate the process to create input files for my analysis software. The software needs a simple text file for input. I want to extract the panel dimensions, parse small openings (not included in this example), convert circular holes to rectangles, and find the dimensions of each opening so I can avoid all the manual work I do now. Many more steps, and hours of reading.
Most of that will be python coding once I get the data how I need it. Thanks for your help.
This software is awesome. 20min with my chat buddy and I have fitted circles and rectangles to work with.
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