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The program STEPToXSection is a command line utility to export the contour of a planar cross section of solids contained in STEP files. It supports surface offsetting of the input geometry and in-plane curve offsetting. The in-plane base contour can also result from the orthogonal projection of geometries (silhouette) onto the plane within a spe…

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STEPToXSection

Description

The program STEPToXSection is a command line utility to export the contour of a planar cross section of solids contained in STEP files. It supports surface offsetting of the input geometry and in-plane curve offsetting. The in-plane base contour can also result from the orthogonal projection of geometries (silhouette) onto the plane within a specified maximum plane distance. The contour is a list of line segments. The supported output file formats are ply (edges, polygons, or triangles) and xyz. In the case of xyz, two consecutive vertices belong to the same edge. A popular viewer for the different file types is MeshLab (https://www.meshlab.net). STEPToXSection is based on OpenCASCADE (https://www.opencascade.com). The program uses cxxops (https://github.com/jarro2783/cxxopts) for parsing the command line.

Requirements

Usage

Listing the contents (solids) of a STEP file: STEPToXSection -c -i <step file>

Computing the planar cross section contour of the overall file content (solids):

STEPToXSection -i <step file> -o <output file> -d <deflection> -p <plane>

The parameter <deflection> controls the resolution of the approximation with line segments.

Computing the planar cross section contour of selected solids of the file:

STEPToXSection -i <step file> -o <output file> -d <deflection> -p <plane> -s <solid1>,<solid2>,<...>

In order to change the default output format ply (edges) the command line argument -f xyzhas to be specified.

Following the help text from the command line:

STEPToXSection.exe
Extracts a contour of the planar cross section of solids contained in STEP files. The programm supports surface offsetting of the input geometry and in-plane curve offsetting. The in-plane base contour can also result from the orthogonal projection of geometries (silhouette) onto the plane within a specified maximum plane distance.
Usage:
  STEPToXSection [OPTION...]

  -i, --in arg              Input file
  -o, --out arg             Output file
  -f, --format arg          Output file format (xyz, ply_edges, ply_polygons,
                            or ply_triangles) (default: ply_edges)
  -c, --content             List content (solids)
  -s, --select arg          Select solids by name or index (comma seperated
                            list, index starts with 1)
  -d, --deflection arg      Chordal tolerance used during discretization
  -p, --plane arg           Single plane (a,b,c,d) or parallel planes
                            (a,b,c,d_start,d_end,d_count), in which a*x + b*y + c*z +
                            d = 0
  -1, --surface_offset arg  Single offset (value) or range offset
                            (start,end,count) for surface offsetting of input geometry
  -2, --curve_offset arg    Single offset (value) or range offset
                            (start,end,count) for in-plane curve offsetting
  -n, --projection arg      Orthogonal projection of geometries with
                            specified maximum plane distance, in which the silhouette
                            of the projected geometries represents the
                            in-plane base contour
  -h, --help                Print usage

Examples

Examples spheres.stp and bone_pocket.stp are from the examples directory.

Examples Spheres

Solids
Image Solids-Spheres
Planar cross section
STEPToXSection.exe -i spheres.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 1.0,0.0,0.0,0.0
Image Cross-Section-Spheres
Planar cross sections
STEPToXSection.exe -i spheres.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 1.0,0.0,0.0,-4.0,4.0,6
Image Cross-Sections-Spheres
Positive in-plane offset curves
STEPToXSection.exe -i spheres.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 1.0,0.0,0.0,0.0 -2 0.0,10.0,10
Image Positive-Offset-Curves-Spheres
Negative in-plane offset curves
STEPToXSection.exe -i spheres.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 1.0,0.0,0.0,0.0 -2 0.0,-4.9,5
Image Negative-Offset-Curves-Spheres

Example Bone Pocket

Solid
Image Solid-Bone-Pocket
Planar cross section
STEPToXSection.exe -i Bone_Pocket.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 0.0,0.0,1.0,0.0
Image Cross-Section-Bone-Pocket
Planar cross sections
STEPToXSection.exe -i Bone_Pocket.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 0.0,0.0,1.0,-4.0,4.0,5
Image Cross-Sections-Bone-Pocket
Positive in-plane offset curves
STEPToXSection.exe -i Bone_Pocket.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 0.0,0.0,1.0,0.0 -2 0.0,4.0,5
Image Positive-Offset-Curves-Bone-Pocket
Negative in-plane offset curves
STEPToXSection.exe -i Bone_Pocket.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 0.0,0.0,1.0,0.0 -2 0.0,-2.0,3
Image Negative-Offset-Curves-Bone-Pocket
Silhouette of projected geometry within plane distance
STEPToXSection.exe -i Bone_Pocket.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 0.0,0.0,1.0,0.0 -n 3.0
Image Silhouette-Projected-Geometry-Bone-Pocket
Silhouettes of projected geometry within plane distance
STEPToXSection.exe -i Bone_Pocket.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 0.0,0.0,1.0,2.5,0.0,6 -n 1.0
Image Silhouettes-Projected-Geometry-Bone-Pocket
Planar cross-sections using positive surface offset
STEPToXSection.exe -i Bone_Pocket.stp -o out.ply -f ply_edges -d 0.01 -p 0.0,0.0,1.0,2.5,0.0,6 -1 1.5
Image Cross-Sections-Positive-Surface-Offset

Remarks

This code has been tested with an OpenCASCADE 7.5.0 prebuilt binary (opencascade-7.5.0-vc14-64.exe) on Windows, as well as OpenCASCADE system packages on openSUSE Linux. With changes in the configuration section in the CMakeLists.txt file the build should also work with other OpenCASCADE versions.

About

The program STEPToXSection is a command line utility to export the contour of a planar cross section of solids contained in STEP files. It supports surface offsetting of the input geometry and in-plane curve offsetting. The in-plane base contour can also result from the orthogonal projection of geometries (silhouette) onto the plane within a spe…

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