Comments on: Why I

By: tolomea

tolomea — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:41:28 +0000

this one is better

module assembly(debug=false){
if(debug){
union(){
color([1,0,0,1]){
for(i=[0:$children-1]){
for(j=[0:$children-1]){
if(i != j){
intersection(){
child(i);
child(j);
}
}
}
}
}
color([1,1,0,0.5]){
for(i=[0:$children-1]){
child(i);
}
}
}
}else{
union(){
for(i=[0:$children-1]){
child(i);
}
}
}
}

assembly(debug=true){
cylinder(r=10,h=20,center=true);
translate([-15,0,0]) cylinder(r=10,h=10,center=true);
translate([15,0,0]) cylinder(r=10,h=10,center=true);
}

By: Craig

Craig — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:28:20 +0000

Oh, I like the idea of taking the intersection of objects in an assembly to detect overlapping components…

By: tolomea

tolomea — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:54:57 +0000

Some tools support for assemblies would be nice. I’m kind of new at this, but I had this idea overnight that might help you. It’s a drop in replacement for union that you can use whenever you are assembling parts. Normally it should be about as efficient as union. If you set the debug flag it will instead show you any overlaps.

module assembly(debug=false){
union(){
for(i=[0:$children-1])
{
if(debug){
for(j=[0:$children-1]){
if(i != j){
echo(“bob”, i, j);
intersection(){
child(i);
child(j);
}
}
}
}else{
child(i);
}
}
}
}

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:05:31 +0000

Yes, I haven’t looked into completely automating it. I have had plans to add coloring to the various components and “vitamins” used in my assemblies to make the various components a little easier to recognize and hopefully make it a bit easier to spot intersections.

By: tolomea

tolomea — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:23:25 +0000

How did you find the intersect? By manual observation?