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Part RefineShape

Description

The Part RefineShape produces a non-parametric copy with a refined shape, that is, with certain edges and faces cleaned up.

After certain boolean operations, like Part Fuse, some lines from the previous shapes may remain visible. This tool produces a copy of that boolean result, and cleans up those seams.

Alternatively, to produce other non-parametric copies use ** Simple Copy **, Transformed Copy, and Element Copy


Original boolean result with 11 faces (left), and refined shape copy with 7 faces (right).

Usage

  1. Select an object that you wish to clean and copy.
  2. Go to the menu Part → Create a copy → Refine shape.
  3. A cleaned, independent copy of the original object is created; the original object is hidden.

As of (v0.19) the result defaults to a parametric (linked) copy.

This behavior can be changed in the Parameter editor:

  1. Go to the subgroup: BaseApp/Preferences/Mod/Part
  2. Change ParametricRefine of type Boolean to False to get the old behavior (independent copy).

See other parameters in Fine-tuning.

Notes

  • This function can be used as the last step in the modelling work to clean up shapes in a traditional constructive solid geometry workflow.
  • This function may help to clean up the model before applying another feature, such as a Fillet.
  • This clean up may stop 3D printers from printing unwanted edges once the solid model is exported to a mesh format.
  • This function can also be used after converting a mesh to a shape (ShapeFromMesh) to clean up the residual edges on flat faces.

Limitations

  • The refinement algorithm only works on shells. Therefore it iterates over the shells of the input shape and then for each shell it creates a new shell with joined faces wherever possible. This means that if your input shape is only a face, wire, edge or vertex then the algorithm does nothing.
  • Unlike the OpenSCAD RefineShapeFeature command, Part RefineShape won't update when the preceding shapes are changed.

Scripting

The Python command for refining a shape is the following:

shape.removeSplitter()

documentation index > Part > Part RefineShape