New Workbench MeshTools now renamed 3D Printing Tools

[mark1791]

I have created a workbench that helps with the importing of stl files from the net, it brings the functionality hidden away to the user without having to resort to trawling the forums to find that bit of python code to do simple things.
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Hi, I'm editing the Release notes 0.19 in the wiki. I'm including your workbench. It would be nice if you could post in this thread a single image that showcases your workbench. It doesn't have to be very complex, but something that attracts potential new users. In the Release notes 0.19 page, go to the "Additional workbenches" section to see the kind of images that are nice. For example, the image used in the "CurvedShapes Workbench" is quite good, as it shows what it is intended for. The image should be big enough, like 600x400 px, although it will be displayed at 400 px width.

The train model that you show here is fine, but given that the entire mesh is blue it is a bit boring and you cannot see details.

Just created a new screen grab which shows most of the functionality. Top to bottom on the left in the Combo view, with models from left to right

See what you think

Mark

3D_Mesh_Tools_Example.jpg (410.71 KiB) Viewed 3336 times

[vocx]

See what you think

It's very nice, I just added it to the notes. I would just try to put the objects closer together so that the picture doesn't have to be very wide. That is, the aspect ratio should be closer to 4x3, instead of this wide aspect, which is almost 2x1.

[mark1791]

See what you think

It's very nice, I just added it to the notes. I would just try to put the objects closer together so that the picture doesn't have to be very wide. That is, the aspect ratio should be closer to 4x3, instead of this wide aspect, which is almost 2x1.

Moved together and resized to be 4:3..

3D_Mesh_Tools_Example.jpg (394.11 KiB) Viewed 3293 times

[vocx]

Moved together and resized to be 4:3..

Great.

By the way, in your toolbars, you are including words like "Orange", "White", "Yellow", etc. I personally think that you should remove the text, as it makes it difficult to translate. Icons should be understandable by themselves. If you want to know what a button does, you can place the mouse over the button and display more information in the tooltip. Tooltips can be translated but icons should be language neutral.

[mark1791]

Moved together and resized to be 4:3..

Great.

By the way, in your toolbars, you are including words like "Orange", "White", "Yellow", etc. I personally think that you should remove the text, as it makes it difficult to translate. Icons should be understandable by themselves. If you want to know what a button does, you can place the mouse over the button and display more information in the tooltip. Tooltips can be translated but icons should be language neutral.

I would say yes and no to removing the text, having just been thrown in the deep end in my day job having to pick up Catia V6, which is basically V5 with a pretty front end to the same functionality but designed by committee rather than by the user. I think having the text is useful, granted that it should be able to be translated easily to different languages. See below screenshot, this is with the text on in the V6 3DS environment but without the text the icons for the iso/plan/side views is similar to the parallel/perspective icon, and is easy to click on the wrong one if the text isn't there. the default is off from the IT department we have and cannot be changed, so at the moment i do click the wrong one at times.

Will have a think about how to make the icons without text that portrays the functionality, do think the march to 'flat design' for UI design makes it harder for the user to pick up, as the emphasis is more on how pretty it looks than is it usable by the poor CAD monkey that has to use this new and wonderful UI............ Am coming up to the big 50 and doing CAD for a long time the strain on the eyes with some of the fancy UI's is not good.

Mark

product-enclosure-designer-catia.jpg (154.08 KiB) Viewed 3247 times

[vocx]

...I think having the text is useful, granted that it should be able to be translated easily to different languages. ...

Yes, having the possibility of showing icon and text, as it is in other programs would be desirable. But until that becomes available in FreeCAD, I think we should avoid hard coding text into the icons. The button's tooltip does the same job anyway; it also displays the information on the status bar.

Will have a think about how to make the icons without text that portrays the functionality, do think the march to 'flat design' for UI design makes it harder for the user to pick up, as the emphasis is more on how pretty it looks than is it usable by the poor CAD monkey that has to use this new and wonderful UI............ Am coming up to the big 50 and doing CAD for a long time the strain on the eyes with some of the fancy UI's is not good.

I think a compromise is good of course. For example, I don't think the coloring icons need to tell you "yellow", "blue", "green", and so on, but maybe there is no other way for Inch --> mm.

I am not a huge proponent of the modern "flat design" icon style, but I also don't have a strong opinion about it.

[bavariaSHAPE]

Hi all,

I like to use the WB regularly. It's really good to prepare parts for 3D printing, such as scaling and positioning.

The following questions have arisen during use:

• How can I change the size of the printer's mesh box?

• I did not quite understand the option "Change default Die length size".

• It would be helpful to additionally scale the X/Y/Z axes separately.

Thanks for helping.

[mark1791]

Hi BaviaShape

Few answers to the questions below.

How can I change the size of the printer's mesh box?
3rd Icon from the left defines the Printer Box Size, unfortunately its a X = Y = Z thing as assumes a square printing bed, a future feature to modify the Printer Bed Size in X/Y and Z separately
I did not quite understand the option "Change default Die length size".
Probably not the best description, as originally the workbench was created to take a full size stamping die solid model and scale it down to fit the 3D Printing bed, so second icon from the left allows you to enter the full size item in X and it will scale the object to fit the 3D Bed when you click on the icon scale to fit
It would be helpful to additionally scale the X/Y/Z axes separately.
A future feature request to do.

One feature i want to add is to create a icon for the ability to cut mesh through section, as been using this a lot to reverse engineer scan data to create a surface to use, it's currently buried in the mesh workbench menu options.

Anything else that may be of use to add?

Thanks for the feedback.

Mark

Hi all,

I like to use the WB regularly. It's really good to prepare parts for 3D printing, such as scaling and positioning.

The following questions have arisen during use:

How can I change the size of the printer's mesh box?
I did not quite understand the option "Change default Die length size".
It would be helpful to additionally scale the X/Y/Z axes separately.
Thanks for helping.

[bavariaSHAPE]

Hallo mark1791,

the functions are really helpful, especially after you've explained them to me.

Because the adjustment of the scaling with the 2nd icon from the left works so well, the following consideration results:

• The print bed is not created square, but variable over X/Y/Z.

• The automatic scaling is not only done by the X/Y print bed area, but also by the room diagonal (like this).

This function allows the optimum use of space for a 3d printer to be achieved, and would be a real goodie.

[doogy666]

Hello mark1791,

The "Mesh -> Solid" operation does not seem to create an object which can participate in boolean operations as a solid. I had to further process the newly created object with the "Advanced utility to create shapes: Solid from shell" from the Part workbench. I'm just starting out here, what am I missing ? Thanks.