From 268c066965dfa3e6240b688e9741a5bea8403f81 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Chris Palmer Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2020 21:11:15 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Added documentation for platters and panels in usage.md. --- docs/usage.md | 13 +++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/usage.md b/docs/usage.md index cad6273..fce9ebe 100644 --- a/docs/usage.md +++ b/docs/usage.md @@ -234,6 +234,19 @@ In OpenCSG 3D difference and intersection are relatively slow and the negative v as possible is done by unioning primitives and extruded 2D shapes. Any 3D differences or intersections are wrapped in ```render()``` so that CGAL will compute a polyhedron that is cached and reused. This will be very slow the first time it renders but very fast afterwards. +### Panels and Platters + +The ```stls``` and ```dxfs``` scripts produce a file for each part but often it is desirable to print or route collections of parts laid out together. +This can be done by adding scad files to folders called ```platters``` for STL files and ```panels``` for DXF files. +These can aggregate and lay out parts by including ```NopSCADlib/core.scad``` and using modules ```use_stl(name)``` and ```use_dxf(name)```. +These modules import the already generated singular STL and DXF files, so they are relatively fast. The name does not include the suffix. +The scad files typically also need to include other files from the project to get the dimensions of the parts to calculate their positions. + +The composite part files have the same name as the scad file that generates them, with the suffix changed to ```.stl``` or ```.dxf```. + +The generated files are placed in ```stls/printed``` and ```dxfs/routed```. +Any parts that are not covered by the platters / panels are copied into the ```printed``` / ```routed``` directories, so that they contain everything to be made. + ### Multiple configurations Some parametric designs might have several configurations, for example a 3D printer with different size options. If several configurations need to be supported at the