Create a FeaturePython object part I: Difference between revisions

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With our module paths and files created, it's now time to start writing our class object!
With our module paths and files created, let's make sure FreeCAD is set up properly. If FreeCAD isn't loaded, now is a good time to boot it up.

Make sure the Python Console and Report View are enabled by selecting '''View -> Panels -> 'Report view''' and '''Python console'''

If you haven't been introduced to the Python Console in FreeCAD, you can [learn more about it here]


== Available properties == <!--T:6-->
== Available properties == <!--T:6-->

Revision as of 02:33, 23 March 2019

PySide
Embedding FreeCAD

Introduction

FeaturePython objects (also often referred to as 'Scripted Objects') provide users the ability to extend FreeCAD's with objects that integrate seamlessly into the FreeCAD framework.


This encourages:

  • Rapid prototyping of new objects and tools with custom Python classes.
  • Serialization through 'App::Property' objects, without embedding any script in the FreeCAD document file.
  • Creative freedom to adapt FreeCAD for any task!


How Does It Work?

FreeCAD comes with a number of default object types for managing different kinds of geometry. Some of them have 'FeaturePython' alternatives that allow for user customization with a custom python class.

The custom python class simply takes a reference to one of these objects and modifies it in any number of ways. For example, the python class may add properties directly to the object, modifying other properties when it's recomputed, or linking it to other objects. In addition the python class implements certain methods to enable it to respond to document events, making it possible to trap object property changes and document recomputes.

It's important to remember, however, that for as much as one can accomplish with custom classes and FeaturePython objects, when it comes time to save the document, only the FeaturePython object itself is serialized. The custom class and it's state are not retained between document reloading. Doing so would require embedding script in the FreeCAD document file, which poses a significant security risk, much like the risks posed by embedding VBA macros in Microsoft Office documents.

Thus, a FeaturePython object ultimately exists entirely apart from it's script. The inconvenience posed by not packing the script with the object in the document file is far less than the risk posed by running a file embedded with an unknown script. However, the script module path is stored in the document file. Therefore, a user need only install the custom python class code as an importable module following the same directory structure to regain the lost functionality.

The Complete Beginner's Guide to FeaturePython Objects

Let's start from the very beginning (it's a very good place to start. ;) )


We're going to construct a complete, working example of a FeaturePython custom class, identifying all of the major components and gaining an intimate understanding of how everything works as we go. But before we do, there's a few details to get out of the way.

Setting up your development environment

To begin, FeaturePython Object classes need to act as importable modules in FreeCAD. That means you need to place them in a path that exists in your Python environment (or add it specifically). For the purposes of this tutorial, we're going to use the FreeCAD user Macro folder, though if you have another idea in mind, feel free to use that instead!


Anyway, if you don't know where the FreeCAD Macro folder is:

  • Windows: Type '%APPDATA%/FreeCAD/Macro' in the filepath bar at the top of Explorer
  • Linux: Navigate to /home/USERNAME/.FreeCAD/Macro
  • Mac: Navigate to /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/FreeCAD/Macro


Now we need to create some files.

  • In the Macro folder create a new folder called fpo.
  • In the fpo folder, create a new folder called box.
  • In the box folder create two files: __init__.py and box.py (leave both empty for now)


The fpo folder provides a nice spot to play with new FeaturePython objects and the box folder is the module we will be working in.

__init__.py tells Python that in the folder is an importable module, and box.py will be the class file for our new FeaturePython Object


Your directory structure should look like this:

.FreeCAD
  |--> Macro
       |--> fpo
            |--> box
                 |--> __init__.py
                 |--> box.py


With our module paths and files created, let's make sure FreeCAD is set up properly. If FreeCAD isn't loaded, now is a good time to boot it up.

Make sure the Python Console and Report View are enabled by selecting View -> Panels -> 'Report view and Python console

If you haven't been introduced to the Python Console in FreeCAD, you can [learn more about it here]

Available properties

Properties are the true building stones of FeaturePython objects. Through them, the user will be able to interact and modify your object. After creating a new FeaturePython object in your document ( obj=FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("App::FeaturePython","Box") ), you can get a list of the available properties by issuing:

obj.supportedProperties()

You will get a list of available properties:

App::PropertyBool
App::PropertyBoolList
App::PropertyFloat
App::PropertyFloatList
App::PropertyFloatConstraint
App::PropertyQuantity
App::PropertyQuantityConstraint
App::PropertyAngle
App::PropertyDistance
App::PropertyLength
App::PropertySpeed
App::PropertyAcceleration
App::PropertyForce
App::PropertyPressure
App::PropertyInteger
App::PropertyIntegerConstraint
App::PropertyPercent
App::PropertyEnumeration
App::PropertyIntegerList
App::PropertyIntegerSet
App::PropertyMap
App::PropertyString
App::PropertyUUID
App::PropertyFont
App::PropertyStringList
App::PropertyLink
App::PropertyLinkSub
App::PropertyLinkList
App::PropertyLinkSubList
App::PropertyMatrix
App::PropertyVector
App::PropertyVectorList
App::PropertyPlacement
App::PropertyPlacementLink
App::PropertyColor
App::PropertyColorList
App::PropertyMaterial
App::PropertyPath
App::PropertyFile
App::PropertyFileIncluded
App::PropertyPythonObject
Part::PropertyPartShape
Part::PropertyGeometryList
Part::PropertyShapeHistory
Part::PropertyFilletEdges
Sketcher::PropertyConstraintList

When adding properties to your custom objects, take care of this:

  • Do not use characters "<" or ">" in the properties descriptions (that would break the xml pieces in the .fcstd file)
  • Properties are stored alphabetically in a .fcstd file. If you have a shape in your properties, any property whose name comes after "Shape" in alphabetic order, will be loaded AFTER the shape, which can cause strange behaviours.

Property Type

By default the properties can be updated. It is possible to make the properties read-only, for instance in the case one wants to show the result of a method. It is also possible to hide the property. The property type can be set using

obj.setEditorMode("MyPropertyName", mode)

where mode is a short int that can be set to:

 0 -- default mode, read and write
 1 -- read-only
 2 -- hidden

The EditorModes are not set at FreeCAD file reload. This could to be done by the __setstate__ function. See http://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=13460&start=10#p108072. By using the setEditorMode the properties are only read only in PropertyEditor. They could still be changed from python. To really make them read only the setting has to be passed directly inside the addProperty function. See http://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=13460&start=20#p109709 for an example.

Other more complex example

This example makes use of the Part Module to create an octahedron, then creates its coin representation with pivy.

First is the Document object itself:

import FreeCAD, FreeCADGui, Part
import pivy
from pivy import coin

class Octahedron:
  def __init__(self, obj):
     "Add some custom properties to our box feature"
     obj.addProperty("App::PropertyLength","Length","Octahedron","Length of the octahedron").Length=1.0
     obj.addProperty("App::PropertyLength","Width","Octahedron","Width of the octahedron").Width=1.0
     obj.addProperty("App::PropertyLength","Height","Octahedron", "Height of the octahedron").Height=1.0
     obj.addProperty("Part::PropertyPartShape","Shape","Octahedron", "Shape of the octahedron")
     obj.Proxy = self

  def execute(self, fp):
     # Define six vetices for the shape
     v1 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,0,0)
     v2 = FreeCAD.Vector(fp.Length,0,0)
     v3 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,fp.Width,0)
     v4 = FreeCAD.Vector(fp.Length,fp.Width,0)
     v5 = FreeCAD.Vector(fp.Length/2,fp.Width/2,fp.Height/2)
     v6 = FreeCAD.Vector(fp.Length/2,fp.Width/2,-fp.Height/2)
     
     # Make the wires/faces
     f1 = self.make_face(v1,v2,v5)
     f2 = self.make_face(v2,v4,v5)
     f3 = self.make_face(v4,v3,v5)
     f4 = self.make_face(v3,v1,v5)
     f5 = self.make_face(v2,v1,v6)
     f6 = self.make_face(v4,v2,v6)
     f7 = self.make_face(v3,v4,v6)
     f8 = self.make_face(v1,v3,v6)
     shell=Part.makeShell([f1,f2,f3,f4,f5,f6,f7,f8])
     solid=Part.makeSolid(shell)
     fp.Shape = solid

  # helper mehod to create the faces
  def make_face(self,v1,v2,v3):
     wire = Part.makePolygon([v1,v2,v3,v1])
     face = Part.Face(wire)
     return face

Then, we have the view provider object, responsible for showing the object in the 3D scene:

class ViewProviderOctahedron:
  def __init__(self, obj):
     "Set this object to the proxy object of the actual view provider"
     obj.addProperty("App::PropertyColor","Color","Octahedron","Color of the octahedron").Color=(1.0,0.0,0.0)
     obj.Proxy = self

  def attach(self, obj):
     "Setup the scene sub-graph of the view provider, this method is mandatory"
     self.shaded = coin.SoGroup()
     self.wireframe = coin.SoGroup()
     self.scale = coin.SoScale()
     self.color = coin.SoBaseColor()

     self.data=coin.SoCoordinate3()
     self.face=coin.SoIndexedLineSet()

     self.shaded.addChild(self.scale)
     self.shaded.addChild(self.color)
     self.shaded.addChild(self.data)
     self.shaded.addChild(self.face)
     obj.addDisplayMode(self.shaded,"Shaded");
     style=coin.SoDrawStyle()
     style.style = coin.SoDrawStyle.LINES
     self.wireframe.addChild(style)
     self.wireframe.addChild(self.scale)
     self.wireframe.addChild(self.color)
     self.wireframe.addChild(self.data)
     self.wireframe.addChild(self.face)
     obj.addDisplayMode(self.wireframe,"Wireframe");
     self.onChanged(obj,"Color")

  def updateData(self, fp, prop):
     "If a property of the handled feature has changed we have the chance to handle this here"
     # fp is the handled feature, prop is the name of the property that has changed
     if prop == "Shape":
        s = fp.getPropertyByName("Shape")
        self.data.point.setNum(6)
        cnt=0
        for i in s.Vertexes:
           self.data.point.set1Value(cnt,i.X,i.Y,i.Z)
           cnt=cnt+1
        
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(0,0)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(1,1)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(2,2)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(3,-1)

        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(4,1)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(5,3)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(6,2)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(7,-1)

        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(8,3)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(9,4)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(10,2)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(11,-1)

        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(12,4)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(13,0)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(14,2)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(15,-1)

        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(16,1)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(17,0)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(18,5)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(19,-1)

        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(20,3)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(21,1)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(22,5)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(23,-1)

        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(24,4)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(25,3)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(26,5)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(27,-1)

        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(28,0)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(29,4)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(30,5)
        self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(31,-1)

  def getDisplayModes(self,obj):
     "Return a list of display modes."
     modes=[]
     modes.append("Shaded")
     modes.append("Wireframe")
     return modes

  def getDefaultDisplayMode(self):
     "Return the name of the default display mode. It must be defined in getDisplayModes."
     return "Shaded"

  def setDisplayMode(self,mode):
     return mode

  def onChanged(self, vp, prop):
     "Here we can do something when a single property got changed"
     FreeCAD.Console.PrintMessage("Change property: " + str(prop) + "\n")
     if prop == "Color":
        c = vp.getPropertyByName("Color")
        self.color.rgb.setValue(c[0],c[1],c[2])

  def getIcon(self):
     return """
        /* XPM */
        static const char * ViewProviderBox_xpm[] = {
        "16 16 6 1",
        "    c None",
        ".   c #141010",
        "+   c #615BD2",
        "@   c #C39D55",
        "#   c #000000",
        "$   c #57C355",
        "        ........",
        "   ......++..+..",
        "   .@@@@.++..++.",
        "   .@@@@.++..++.",
        "   .@@  .++++++.",
        "  ..@@  .++..++.",
        "###@@@@ .++..++.",
        "##$.@@$#.++++++.",
        "#$#$.$$$........",
        "#$$#######      ",
        "#$$#$$$$$#      ",
        "#$$#$$$$$#      ",
        "#$$#$$$$$#      ",
        " #$#$$$$$#      ",
        "  ##$$$$$#      ",
        "   #######      "};
        """

  def __getstate__(self):
     return None

  def __setstate__(self,state):
     return None

Finally, once our object and its viewobject are defined, we just need to call them (The Octahedron class and viewprovider class code could be copied in the FreeCAD python console directly):

FreeCAD.newDocument()
a=FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("App::FeaturePython","Octahedron")
Octahedron(a)
ViewProviderOctahedron(a.ViewObject)

Making objects selectable

If you want to make your object selectable, or at least part of it, by clicking on it in the viewport, you must include its coin geometry inside a SoFCSelection node. If your object has complex representation, with widgets, annotations, etc, you might want to include only a part of it in a SoFCSelection. Everything that is a SoFCSelection is constantly scanned by FreeCAD to detect selection/preselection, so it makes sense try not to overload it with unneeded scanning. This is what you would do to include a self.face from the example above:

selectionNode = coin.SoType.fromName("SoFCSelection").createInstance()
selectionNode.documentName.setValue(FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.Name)
selectionNode.objectName.setValue(obj.Object.Name) # here obj is the ViewObject, we need its associated App Object
selectionNode.subElementName.setValue("Face")
selectNode.addChild(self.face)
...
self.shaded.addChild(selectionNode)
self.wireframe.addChild(selectionNode)

Simply, you create a SoFCSelection node, then you add your geometry nodes to it, then you add it to your main node, instead of adding your geometry nodes directly.

Working with simple shapes

If your parametric object simply outputs a shape, you don't need to use a view provider object. The shape will be displayed using FreeCAD's standard shape representation:

import FreeCAD as App
import FreeCADGui
import FreeCAD
import Part
class Line:
    def __init__(self, obj):
        '''"App two point properties" '''
        obj.addProperty("App::PropertyVector","p1","Line","Start point")
        obj.addProperty("App::PropertyVector","p2","Line","End point").p2=FreeCAD.Vector(1,0,0)
        obj.Proxy = self

    def execute(self, fp):
        '''"Print a short message when doing a recomputation, this method is mandatory" '''
        fp.Shape = Part.makeLine(fp.p1,fp.p2)

a=FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::FeaturePython","Line")
Line(a)
a.ViewObject.Proxy=0 # just set it to something different from None (this assignment is needed to run an internal notification)
FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.recompute()

Same code with use ViewProviderLine

import FreeCAD as App
import FreeCADGui
import FreeCAD
import Part

class Line:
    def __init__(self, obj):
         '''"App two point properties" '''
         obj.addProperty("App::PropertyVector","p1","Line","Start point")
         obj.addProperty("App::PropertyVector","p2","Line","End point").p2=FreeCAD.Vector(100,0,0)
         obj.Proxy = self
   
    def execute(self, fp):
        '''"Print a short message when doing a recomputation, this method is mandatory" '''
        fp.Shape = Part.makeLine(fp.p1,fp.p2)

class ViewProviderLine:
   def __init__(self, obj):
      ''' Set this object to the proxy object of the actual view provider '''
      obj.Proxy = self

   def getDefaultDisplayMode(self):
      ''' Return the name of the default display mode. It must be defined in getDisplayModes. '''
      return "Flat Lines"

a=FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::FeaturePython","Line")
Line(a)
ViewProviderLine(a.ViewObject)
App.ActiveDocument.recompute()


Further information

There are a few very interesting forum threads about scripted objects:

- http://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=13740

- http://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=12139

- https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=13460&start=20#p109709

- https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=21330


In addition to the examples presented here have a look at FreeCAD source code src/Mod/TemplatePyMod/FeaturePython.py for more examples.

PySide
Embedding FreeCAD