Part RefineShape

From FreeCAD Documentation

Part RefineShape

Menu location
Part → Create a copy → Refine Shape
Workbenches
Part
Default shortcut
None
Introduced in version
-
See also
Part SimpleCopy, Part TransformedCopy, Part ElementCopy, OpenSCAD RefineShapeFeature

Description

The Part RefineShape command produces parametric copies with a refined shape from selected objects. It can for example be used to remove unnecessary edges left over after a Part Fuse operation.

Original with 11 faces (left), and refined copy with 7 faces (right).

Usage

  1. Select one or more objects.
  2. Select the Part → Create a copy → Refine shape option from the menu.
  3. For each object a cleaned, parametric copy is created
  4. The original objects are hidden.

Notes

  • This command can be used as the last step in a traditional constructive solid geometry workflow.
  • It may help to clean up the model before applying other features, such as fillets.
  • Cleaning up an object may prevent 3D printers from printing unwanted edges once the object is exported to a mesh format.
  • This command can also be used after converting a mesh to a shape (Part ShapeFromMesh).
  • By default this command creates parametric (linked) copies. There is fine-tuning parameter to change this to non-parametric copies. More information about parametric/non-parametric copy behavior can be found in this forum post.
  • Some interesting information about what is happening with placement and how to access by Python can be found in this forum post.

Scripting

The Python command for refining a shape is the following:

shape.removeSplitter()