How to Expand Sheet Metal with Analysis Situs SDK？

[ICO]

I am a new developer, and I started learning Open Cascade with pyOCC.
Since I don't have much knowledge about sheet metal processing myself, I was hoping to find a ready-to-use sheet metal unfolding algorithm that I could integrate into my own CAD software. That's when I came across Analysis Situs.
I followed the instructions on the forum to compile the Analysis Situs SDK using CMake's algo scheme, but now I'm unsure how to use it.
I don't have much knowledge in C++ development, so I'm not sure which header files I should include in my C++ project to perform sheet metal unfolding on my CAD models.
I have already followed some tutorials to import STEP files and visualize them using OCC in my C++ project.

 

[Quaoar]

Hello @ICO and welcome to the forum.

The only open-sourced sheet metal unfolding algorithm I'm aware of is the one by Ulrich Brammer from FreeCAD. It is written in Python and might probably be a good fit for you; have you tried it already?

As for Analysis Situs, we do not provide a sheet metal solution for free; it's a part of the commercial SDK we've been developing for quite some time already. But if you are up to develop something like that from scratch, we can continue chatting here, I can give you some hints if it makes any sense.

 

[ICO]

Hello @ICO and welcome to the forum.

The only open-sourced sheet metal unfolding algorithm I'm aware of is the one by Ulrich Brammer from FreeCAD. It is written in Python and might probably be a good fit for you; have you tried it already?

As for Analysis Situs, we do not provide a sheet metal solution for free; it's a part of the commercial SDK we've been developing for quite some time already. But if you are up to develop something like that from scratch, we can continue chatting here, I can give you some hints if it makes any sense.

Thanks Quaoar, your reply is much appreciated!

I haven't tried it on python yet, I'll refer to the FreeCAD source code for some learning first.
My main need is feature recognition in step format models, and the commercial SDK you developed might be a viable solution as well.

 

[Quaoar]

Thanks Quaoar, your reply is much appreciated!

I haven't tried it on python yet, I'll refer to the FreeCAD source code for some learning first.
My main need is feature recognition in step format models, and the commercial SDK you developed might be a viable solution as well.

You may want to send me a private message with a list of features you're up to recognize, and I'll send you back some more information on the SDK.