Sectioning Solids

[B_Roche]

Ive looked everywhere. The autocad help is missing some, or all, of the info that is needed

I want to generate sections from 3d models, hopefully using VBA. Im not proficient in lisp, but will do what is necessary to get this done.

Im hoping to get not only the profiles of the solids sectioned at a particular plane/location, but also unsectioned geometry from solids just 'out of range' of the plane section. (background, etc)

Ive already tried/tweaked the "SectionSolid" call; but it only returns the geometry directly thru the section, and none of the unsectioned background objects. However, I think I can use the fact that the region comes back as an empty object to tell me that the offending solid is NOT intersecting, so that maybe I can also use 'GenerateSectionGeometry ' call to get just the background geometry, which I also need.

The docs for GenerateSectionGeometry are sparse; Ive seen nothing on different web searches. I have a few questions that may help get the ball rolling here. Id appreciate *any* insight into these problems:


1) The section Object itself: I tried usinn the "AddSection" method,
unsuccessfully. What is the plane vector? How do I format it?

2) I skipped by that and attempted to use the GenerateSectionGeometry call from an existing section plane made manually in a drawing. The help states the "pEntity" param is an "entity" - which entity? The solid that has to be sectioned? That returns an
error. A Block, like AddSection requires ? A blockRef? (remember, the manual version of this call also returns geometry in a block), so i tried both blocks, and blockrefs - nogo.

Or maybe theres another way? A way I can get the culled profiles, of non-intersecting geometry from solids ? Then I can use the sectionsolid call, with the geometry formatting libs I just wrote.

???

[roger_wall]

I AM STUCK ON THIS AS WELL
MY TACK AT THE MOMENT IS TO RUN THE COMMANDS FROM THE
COMAND LINE eg. SECTIONPLANE
AND THEM TRAP THEM IN ENDCOMMANDS EVENT
AND THEN INSPECT THE AcDBSection object etc to see if I can make sense of it.

[roger_wall]

AND OBJECTADDED

[roger_wall]

TRAPPING THE COMMAND I FOUND THE refPLANE was a SIMPLE 0,0,1 type Variant.

So CODED this:
If TestNbr = "90" Then
Dim myBlock As AcadBlock
PT1v = PickPoint("Point 1") ' pts either side of the solid
PT2v = PickPoint("Point 2")
Call PTv_Assign(PT3v, 0, 1, 0) ' wcs Y Axis for me
Dim section As AcadSection
Set myBlock = ThisDrawing.Blocks.Add(PT1v, "SectionBlock")
Set section = myBlock.AddSection(PT1v, PT2v, PT3v)
Set Obj = PickObject("Pick Object") ' the solid
Dim v1 As Variant, v2 As Variant, v3 As Variant, v4 As Variant, v5 As Variant
Call section.GenerateSectionGeometry(Obj, v1, v2, v3, v4, v5)
' v1 IntersectionBoundaryObjs - the 2d section ?
For i = 0 To UBound(v1)
Set Obj = v1(i)
If Obj.ObjectName = "AcDbLine" Then
Set l = Obj
l.Color = acGreen
l.Update
H = l.Handle
End If
Next i

End If

Add it all seems ok - doesn't crash.

BUT...
I can't see anything - the l lineobject above is invisble.
Grrrr

[arshiel88]

Try this.

Sub GenSection()
Dim x3DSolid As Acad3DSolid
ThisDrawing.Utility.GetEntity x3DSolid, basePt, "Pick 3D Solid"

Dim PlaneVector(0 To 2) As Double
PlaneVector(0) = 0: PlaneVector(1) = 0: PlaneVector(2) = 1
pt1 = ThisDrawing.Utility.GetPoint(, "Pick first point")
pt2 = ThisDrawing.Utility.GetPoint(, "Pick end point")
Dim sec As AcadSection

Dim ss As AcadSectionSettings

Set sec = ThisDrawing.ModelSpace.AddSection(pt1, pt2, PlaneVector)
With sec
.TopHeight = 3
.BottomHeight = 1
.State = acSectionStatePlane
Set ss = .Settings
End With

With ss
.CurrentSectionType = acSectionType2dSection
End With

Dim acSectionTypeSettings As AcadSectionTypeSettings
Set acSectionTypeSettings = ss.GetSectionTypeSettings(acSectionType2dSection)
With acSectionTypeSettings
.ForegroundLinesVisible = True
.BackgroundLinesHiddenLine = True
.IntersectionFillHatchPatternName = "ANSI31"
'and other settings
End With

sec.GenerateSectionGeometry x3DSolid, BoundaryObjs, FillObjs, BakcGroundObjs, ForegroundObjs, CurveTangencyObjs

End Sub

BoundaryObjs receives the boundary lines, FillObjs receives the fills (hatch), and so on.

PS: use "[code]" tags