Part ExplodeCompound

From FreeCAD Documentation

Part ExplodeCompound

Menu location
Part → Compound → Explode compound
Workbenches
Part
Default shortcut
None
Introduced in version
0.18
See also
Part Compound, Draft Downgrade

Description

Tool to split up compounds of shapes, to make each contained shape (child) available as a separate object in model tree. The children are automatically put into a Group if there is more than one child.

It is semi-parametric: the shapes of the children will update as the source compound changes, but if the number of children in the compound is changed, the explosion will be either missing some shapes, or have redundant objects in an error state.

Placements of extracted shapes follow the placements of the originals, plus the Placement property of each child.

The tool will also explode non-compound shapes into their lower-level constituents: compsolids into solids, solids into shells, shells into faces, faces into wires, wires into edges, edges into vertices.

Usage

  1. Invoke the Part ExplodeCompound tool several ways:
    • Pressing on the button in the Part toolbar
    • Using the Part → Compound → Explode compound entry in the Part menu

Use cases

  • Tweaking positions of shapes made by Draft OrthoArray
  • Obtaining split pieces from result of Part Slice and Part Cut
  • Obtaining individual contours from multi-contour sketches and faces
  • Obtaining a pure solid from a solid-in-compound, for use in FEM Workbench.