Part RefineShape

Description
Part RefineShape produces a non-parametric copy with a refined shape, that is, with certain edges and faces cleaned up.

After certain boolean operations, like Part Union, some lines from the previous shapes main remain visible. This tool produces a copy of that boolean result, and cleans up those seams.

To produce other non-parametric copies use SimpleCopy, TransformedCopy, and ElementCopy.



Use

 * 1) Select the shape to be cleaned.
 * 2) Use the menu.
 * A copy of the object is created and totally cleaned, the original object is rendered hidden.
 * The newly created copy is independent of the original. In FreeCAD 0.19 the RefineShape feature defaults to a parametric (linked) copy. This behavior can be changed with ParametricRefine parameter described in Fine-tuning.

Limitations

 * The refinement algorithm only works on shells. Therefore it iterates over the shells of the input shape and then for each shell it creates a new shell with joined faces wherever possible. This means if your input shape is only a face, wire, edge or vertex then the algorithm does nothing.
 * Opposed to RefineShapeFeature in OpenSCAD workbench, this feature won't update when the preceding shapes are changed.

Scripting
The Python command for refining a shape is the following: