Grillage Fabrication

All,

I put together a utility definition to create a grillage (waffle) surface for laser cutter fabrication. Please feel free to use it (at your own risk...). I plan to make improvements to this base configuration in the future.

Features:

_Specify the uniform spacing for each of two (A = above, B = below) orthographic cut planes;
_Specify the rotation (angle) of the orthographic cut planes to the reference surface;
_Fine tune the start of A or B cut planes by shifting each independently;
_Specify rib height and notch thickness;
_Automated layout of the rib sections for fabrication including notches and labels;
_Visual 3D reference guide for construction;
_A "defaultGrillage" state has been saved under the "Solution" menu for quick start-up;
_A "generate_grillage_layout?" on/off toggle to allow for faster operation.

Limitations:

_The reference surface must always be shrunk;
_The grillage (for now...) is generated from a vertical extrusion downward. A surface with extreme geometry may not work well, if at all;
_If the outline of the reference surface is such that a section plane will cut the surface in two locations the automated layout will not function correctly;
_The notches are generated as rectangles with the intention that the user will want to cut the notches on a separate pass from the rib sections;
_Without any clusters, the canvas looks pretty scary. The resulting output of the definition is located all the way downstream (but should be clearly labeled).

View some screenshots from my album Gillage Making.

Download the definition file here: grillageFAB_v1.rar

Happy cutting.

-taz

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Amelia Mendez on September 17, 2009 at 12:57pm

I immediately get an error at the the first PCX unit from the C input... not sure what it could be

My goal is to eventually modify this to makes just planar sections for the simple stacking method of 2d cnc'd materials. If anyone knows a prexisting script that helps to.

Permalink Reply by taz on September 21, 2009 at 7:02pm

Ameila,

Locate the surface in the (+x,+y) quadrant (for later...).

The error you are getting is intentional. Set the boolean data switch named "generate_grillage_layout?" to "True" for the rest of the definition to complete.

Also, for a sectional layer definition I would start from scratch. This is a different kind of animal.

-taz

Permalink Reply by David Wood on September 28, 2009 at 3:13am

Thanks for sharing your definition taz, it works brilliantly!

Recommend everyone to download!

Keep up the good work...

Permalink Reply by taz on September 29, 2009 at 11:23am

Updated definition(s) available for surfaces or closed BReps...

Grillage Fabrication

Permalink Reply by Gwyll on September 30, 2009 at 2:15am

great definition. I tried playing with your updated version which takes polysurfaces but ran into a few problems when I tried to do 'hollow' type geometry. The definition could not interpret the 'trim' of the planar surfaces.

I fixed this by playing with the path structure but have now ran in to a separate problem whereby the definition no longer allows for multiple section pieces/cut. Do you want to take a look at it? A flawless fabrication definition like this would be really really handy.

As downloaded the definition sets the cutting angle so there are no multiple cuts - if you set it back to 0 you should see the problem. Also try setting your version 2 definition to that geometry if you want to see my trim problem.
Cheers - see attached files.

Attachments:

gFAB_BRep_v3.ghx, 2.1 MB
test.3dm, 91 KB

Permalink Reply by taz on October 1, 2009 at 5:31pm

Gwyllim,

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't test very extensively to see how GH interprets referenced polysurfaces, but trimmed vs. shrunk surfaces is an issue that keeps coming up.

I'll take a look at your test, but perhaps all surfaces need to be shrunk before they are joined into a polysurface (BRep) in order for things to work as expected. I can post my test file as an example since it works. It's a polysurface composed of 3 surfaces: a trimmed (and shrunk) surface, a planar surface and a loft.

-taz

Permalink Reply by taz on October 2, 2009 at 8:22am

OK, now I see...

I made a minor tweak to the definition. Long story short I was using curves as much as possible to avoid going from curves -> surfaces -> wireframe -> join curves to make things faster. If I stick with surfaces from the beginning the definition may work slower but should be more robust.

I posted a v2.1 definition in the "Samples and Examples" section.

These screenshots with your test BRep look to be working correctly. Also I've attached a test file with surfaces and BReps (the ones from my album). With the second BRep you can see the issue where the label does not land within the section outline, but I'm working on that.

Attachments:

TEST_Srf_BRep.3dm, 296 KB

Permalink Reply by maysam on October 3, 2009 at 12:13am

Hi taz
Thank you for sharing your definition
I have had a problem creating 4point surface out of CCX grid point then I have used part of your definition to change the order of the point in each path and again I have problem
Could you please take look at the file and help me to figure out
thanks

Attachments:

skin1.3dm, 114 KB
skin1.ghx, 999 KB

Permalink Reply by taz on October 12, 2009 at 7:53am

Updated definition available. It's now (for better or for worse) an all-in-one definition, but represents some good progress.

Grillage Fabrication

If anyone's using this, could y'all kindly add a pic here?

Permalink Reply by taz on October 23, 2009 at 8:49am

Here's the new radial grillage fabrication definition (gRadFAB). It still needs some work but it's functional...

The regular gFAB definition should also now create labels faster.

Grillage Fabrication

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