Boolean operation between 2 shapes created from STL

Boris Weisman
Mon, 09/03/2018 - 16:43

Forums:

Modeling Data and Algorithms

Hello

I am looking for solution of the following issue:

1. Import 2 parts from STL file and transform them to shapes

2. Make boolean operation (CUT operation) between 2 imported shapes.

I encountered several problems:

- StlAPI_Reader::Read function works very slow. The STL file contains thousands of triangles and sewing operation works slowly

- At last, I got 2 shapes I can not make cut operations, because (I guess) there are not Solid.

I will appreciate to any idea , how to solve this issue.

Kirill Gavrilov
Mon, 09/03/2018 - 20:22

Boolean operations in OCCT are designed for dealing with BRep geometry, not with triangulation data.
StlAPI_Reader wouldn't make any good geometry for you - it just reads triangles.

Either, you need reconstructing B-Spline surfaces from STL files (expensive, slow and requires user interaction)
or consider performing Boolean operations designed for triangulation data like provided by Mesh Framework:
https://www.opencascade.com/content/mesh-framework