Molding Feature Recognizer Example

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Implementation
• Example output
• Files

Demonstrates how to perform recognition of molding features on a 3D model and print information about found features and their parameters in a console.

Overview

In this example demonstrates how to perform recognition of molding features on a 3D model using molding feature recognition tool (Molding_FeatureRecognizer). For this purpose, used a console application that imports a model, traverses through unique ModelData::Part , creates and runs Molding_FeatureRecognizer, groups and prints information about found features and their parameters into console. Molding feature recognition will be performed for each unique ModelData::Part , but only for the scope of accepted geometries.

Application needs 1 input argument to run:

Usage: molding_feature_recognizer <input_file>, where:
    <input_file> is a name of the file to be read

For more information about feature recognition visit Injection Molding page.

Implementation

PartProcessor class is inherited from SolidProcessor and overrides ProcessSolid method that are used to run Molding_FeatureRecognizer on given shapes. Then PrintFeatures method is used to print information about found features and their parameters in a console.
Visit Model Explore Helper Implementation page for more information about base SolidProcessor class implementation.

using namespace cadex;
 
class PartProcessor : public SolidProcessor
{
public:
    void ProcessSolid (const ModelData::Solid& theSolid) override
    {
        // Set up recognizer
        Molding_FeatureRecognizerParameters aRecognizerParameters;
        aRecognizerParameters.SetMaxRibThickness (30.0);
        aRecognizerParameters.SetMaxRibDraftAngle (0.2);
        aRecognizerParameters.SetMaxRibTaperAngle (0.1);
 
        Molding_FeatureRecognizer aRecognizer (aRecognizerParameters);
        auto aFeatureList = aRecognizer.Perform (theSolid);
        PrintFeatures (aFeatureList);
    }
};

To traverse only unique parts of the imported model, the ModelData::ModelElementUniqueVisitor class is used.

PartProcessor aPartProcessor;
ModelData::ModelElementUniqueVisitor aVisitor (aPartProcessor);
aModel.Accept (aVisitor);

After performing feature recognition, the object of FeatureGroupManager class is used to group and sort found molding features. For this purpose, there is a traverse through all found features and add each of them to FeatureGroupManager with a specified name.

using namespace cadex;
 
for (size_t i = 0; i < theFeatureList.Size(); i++) {
    const auto& aFeature = theFeatureList[i];
    if (aFeature.IsOfType<Molding_ScrewBoss>()) {
        const auto& aScrewBoss = static_cast<const Molding_ScrewBoss&> (aFeature);
        aManager.AddFeature ("Screw Boss(es)", "Screw Boss(es)", true, aScrewBoss);
    } else if (aFeature.IsOfType<MTKBase_Boss>()) {
        const auto& aBoss = static_cast<const MTKBase_Boss&> (aFeature);
        aManager.AddFeature ("Boss(es)", "Boss(es)", true, aBoss);
    } else if (aFeature.IsOfType<Molding_Rib>()) {
        const auto& aRib = static_cast<const Molding_Rib&> (aFeature);
        aManager.AddFeature ("Rib(s)", "Rib(s)", true, aRib);
    }
}

After adding all found features to FeatureGroupManager, a Print method of the manager is used to print information about found features and their parameters in a console. PrintFeatureParameters is created to explore and print feature parameters. It uses as an input parameter of Print method.

using namespace cadex;
 
auto PrintFeatureParameters = [] (const MTKBase_Feature& theFeature)
{
    if (theFeature.IsOfType<Molding_ScrewBoss>()) {
        const auto& aScrewBoss = static_cast<const Molding_ScrewBoss&> (theFeature);
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("outer radius", aScrewBoss.OuterRadius(),             "mm");
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("inner radius", aScrewBoss.InnerRadius(),             "mm");
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("draft angle",  ToDegrees (aScrewBoss.DraftAngle()),  "deg");
    } else if (theFeature.IsOfType<MTKBase_Boss>()) {
        const auto& aBoss = static_cast<const MTKBase_Boss&> (theFeature);
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("length", aBoss.Length(), "mm");
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("height", aBoss.Height(), "mm");
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("width",  aBoss.Width(),  "mm");
    } else if (theFeature.IsOfType<Molding_Rib>()) {
        const auto& aRib = static_cast<const Molding_Rib&> (theFeature);
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("length",      aRib.Length(),                 "mm");
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("height",      aRib.Height(),                 "mm");
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("thickness",   aRib.Thickness(),              "mm");
        FeatureGroupManager::PrintFeatureParameter ("draft angle", ToDegrees (aRib.DraftAngle()), "deg");
    }
};
aManager.Print ("features", PrintFeatureParameters);

Visit Feature Group Helper Implementation page for more information about FeatureGroupManager class implementation.

Example output

Below is an example output for model from ./examples/models/Part3.stp.

Model

Example output

Model: Part3.stp Part #0 ["Part3"] - solid #0 has: Rib(s): 5 1 Rib(s) with length: 33.2764 mm height: 15.5984 mm thickness: 15 mm draft angle: 0 deg 3 Rib(s) with length: 40 mm height: 29 mm thickness: 3.91237 mm draft angle: 0 deg 1 Rib(s) with length: 127.988 mm height: 18.7895 mm thickness: 15 mm draft angle: 0 deg Screw Boss(es): 3 1 Screw Boss(es) with outer radius: 18.85 mm inner radius: 15 mm draft angle: 0 deg 1 Screw Boss(es) with outer radius: 22 mm inner radius: 10 mm draft angle: 0 deg 1 Screw Boss(es) with outer radius: 22.3392 mm inner radius: 20 mm draft angle: 11.3099 deg Total features: 8

Files

• C++: All files
• C#: All files
• Java: All files
• Python: All files