User:Suraj Dadral/GSoC20/proposal


 * Name: Suraj


 * IRC nick: 	SurajDadral


 * Blog: https://hacksj4u.wordpress.com


 * GitHub profile: https://github.com/SurajDadral

Brief Background Information

I am a B.Tech. (3rd year) student of Computer Science @ Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, India. Practiced in writing code in C/C++, Python and used Git, Qt, Django, Twisted, OpenCV, Make, Jekyll and PySide2.

I completed the project “Automate Reinforcement Process in FreeCAD” during GSoC’19. Repository Link: https://github.com/SurajDadral/FreeCAD-Reinforcement/tree/gsoc19

= Project Information =

= Project Title: Extended functionality of Rebar Addon in FreeCAD =

= Brief Project Summary =

This Project is to create rebar shape cut list, bar bending schedule, export to BVBS format and automatic drawing of a structural element after reinforcement with dimensions in FreeCAD. For automatic drawing, the idea is to create a UI which lists different templates for columns and beams and for different reinforcement elements inside them which can be created, deleted and modified through some UI. The user will choose the template to apply to drawing sheets and can export output drawing to svg and pdf format.

= Detailed Project Description =

Current Scenario in FreeCAD

Now with rebar addon we are able to create reinforcement in the structural elements with much ease. But there is one big limitation due to which it is not much used in the real world. The problem is, a user has to do a lot of manual work to produce a single drawing sheet. And “rebar shape cut list” and “bar bending schedule” cannot be created for rebars without which rebar tools of FreeCAD cannot be used in real world problems.

To create drawing of structural elements in FreeCAD

 In the TechDraw workbench, we first need to create a page for drawing. Then select structural elements to be included in drawing including their reinforcement objects. Then select the view (e.g. top, bottom, left, right, etc.) of objects to be added in the drawing and click on the “insert view” icon of TechDraw to create a view in the drawing sheet. Then we need to manually add annotations and dimensions to structural elements and reinforcement inside them. Then export output to required format (e.g. svg, dxf, etc.). 

Doing the above steps manually for beams and columns in a building is a repetitive and time consuming task.

There is no provision to create a Bill of Material for rebars. If user wants to do so, he needs to perform following steps:  Create a new spreadsheet using Spreadsheet workbench to store material data. Fill spreadsheet by performing queries on model to get reinforcement information.</li> Create a new drawing sheet in the TechDraw workbench.</li> Create view from spreadsheet using command “Insert spreadsheet view” in drawing.</li> </ol> Even after performing above steps, the output is not as cool as shared by @bernd here: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=17061#p135030

For creating Bill of Material, bar shape cut list, bar bending schedule and drawing of reinforcement, one of the prerequisites is the mark number property of rebars. As explained by @bernd here: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=44580&start=20#p382093 The rebar mark is a number which has to be unique in one rebar shape cut list. This is the number on the drawing to identify the rebar. On the building site the worker takes all rebars of mark X from the delivered real rebars. Then he looks at the rebar drawing or may be on the rebar BIM model, searches for that number and then knows where to put these rebars. Currently, there is no implementation for mark number for rebars.

Proposed solution to the problem

For mark number, as explained by @bernd here: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=44580&start=20#p382307 The mark will be created automatically a new rebar is instanciated. If this exact rebar shape is somewhere (in the group of rebars created for a specific rebar cut list) the mark will be taken from there. If the user does not want it he can immediately overwrite it, or later overwrites it.

For creating Bill of Material, a new icon will be added to the dropdown menu of the rebar addon which will create a bill of material as a spreadsheet object with a single click of mouse. For more ease, while creating reinforcement drawing, a checkbox will be provided that if he wants to include BOM in the drawing. Then a spreadsheet will be added to drawing after applying formatting (if required).

For creating bar shape cut list, a new icon will be added to the dropdown menu of rebar addon which will perform following task:  Compute parameters for each unique rebar shape in the model and store them inside spreadsheet object.</li> Export bar shape cut list to svg/pdf format.</li> </ol> For more ease, while creating reinforcement drawing, a checkbox will be provided that if he wants to include bar shape cut list in the drawing.

For creating bar bending schedule, a new icon will be added to the dropdown menu of rebar addon which will create bar bending schedule by combining the functionality of bar shape cut list and bill of material. This schedule will be exported to svg/pdf format. Expected output of bar bending schedule is the same as the example mentioned in “SP 34: Handbook on Concrete Reinforcement and Detailing”.