CLI export of wall thickness

[whitegarter]

Hello Quaoar and friends, thanks for this gem of an analysis software. I am a 3d printing enthusiast and really starting to love Analysis Situs.

I am new to the whole DFM of parts and would like some help. Tcl scripts are also new for me (I am a hobbyist Python programmer) but I started using the CLI to load a step file and check the Radius in without opening the GUI. One thing I cannot do though is to check-thickness from the CLI.

My goal would be to somehow automaticaly start the CLI load a step file, run the code below and export my findings.

load-step filepath
recognize-blends -radius
check-thickness

# here i would like to export these findings to a csv for further analysis

Then I will analyse these in python to set speeds and everything. Am I on the right track with my CLI approach? Do you have any input / suggestions for me?

Thank you for your time.

 

[Quaoar]

Hello, @whitegarter and welcome to the forum. You are on the right track; however, you may be missing certain capabilities that would allow you to completely automate your operation. For example, the 'check-thickness' command was designed primarily for interactive use, so it does not dump a lot of information. Actually, it doesn't even work in CLI; I noticed it crashes

Have you given up, or are you still attempting to achieve something helpful with Analysis Situs? If so, you may want to post the issues you're having right here, and I'll try to assist you, at least by saying whether it's currently feasible or not. If not, I'll make a request for improvements for our next release.

P.S. Sorry for the late reply; things piled up here quite a bit.

 

[whitegarter]

Hi @Quaoar . Thank you for taking the time to reply. I dont give up that easy! I already like it better than what fusion360 is offering with the "inspect radius tool". Analysis Situs does a great job on that. When I use the GUI its perfect. Lets see how far I can get with the automation of stuff.

I read through the whole forum looking for suggestions on how others might have done it. Im going to change my CLI approach to a TCL script approach. I read up on that and I think i should be able to altead read a step file, read the radii and export them to a csv file.

however, you may be missing certain capabilities that would allow you to completely automate your operation.

Do you think I will have more options going with tcl scripts than just by using the CLI to try to do the same?

 

[Quaoar]

Do you think I will have more options going with tcl scripts than just by using the CLI to try to do the same?

Well, Tcl scripts are the same CLI commands, just arranged into separate files. This only fact makes them a little easier to maintain and execute (e.g., with `source yourScript.tcl` command in the same CLI). Speaking of limitations, what I meant was rather that:

a) Without UI, some Tcl commands may fail because they attempt to access a window or 3D presentation that does not exist. These are clearly bugs that can be easily fixed.

b) Even if fixed, some commands may not return any useful value to the interpreter that you can consult or dump to a file. For example, the 'check-thickness' command mentioned above could have returned the minimum detected wall thickness, but it does not.

We do not have any QA team whatsoever, so all such issues are often discovered and handled on their first occurrence. Therefore, if you observe something strange, don't hesitate to post it here; it will definitely help us improve the thing