Skip to main content

OCP-Tessellate

Tessellate OCP (Python bindings for OpenCascade) shapes into a JSON-friendly format suitable for three-cad-viewer and downstream tooling such as ocp_vscode.

It accepts geometry from CadQuery, build123d, and raw OCP TopoDS_* shapes, walks the structure, computes triangulations / discretized edges, and emits a hierarchical group of meshed instances.

Installation

pip install ocp-tessellate

Requires Python 3.10+ and OCP 7.8 or 7.9.

Quick start

Programmatic pipeline

For embedding in a tool (the path used by ocp_vscode):

from build123d import Box, Sphere, Compound
from ocp_tessellate.convert import to_ocpgroup, tessellate_group

box = Box(1, 2, 3)
sphere = Sphere(0.5)
sphere.label = "ball"
assembly = Compound(label="root", children=[box, sphere])

# Step 1: convert to an OcpGroup hierarchy + instance list
group, instances = to_ocpgroup(assembly)

# Step 2: tessellate the instances
meshed_instances, shapes, mapping = tessellate_group(group, instances)
# `shapes` is a JSON-serializable tree consumable by three-cad-viewer

Direct export to three-cad-viewer

The simplest path — emit a .js file that a three-cad-viewer page can load directly:

from build123d import Box
from ocp_tessellate.convert import export_three_cad_viewer_js

box = Box(1, 2, 3)
export_three_cad_viewer_js("box", box, filename="box.js")
# writes box.js with `var box = {...}` ready for three-cad-viewer/examples

This is the bridge to three-cad-viewer: bundles tessellated instances + scene tree into a single JSON payload assigned to a JS variable.

Public API

Three entry points in ocp_tessellate.convert:

  • export_three_cad_viewer_js(var, *objs, names=None, colors=None, alphas=None, modes=None, filename=None, keep_instances=False) — runs the full pipeline (to_ocpgroup → tessellate_group → JSON encode) and writes a var <name> = {...}; JS file. The direct integration point with three-cad-viewer.
  • to_ocpgroup(*objs, names=None, colors=None, alphas=None, modes=None, ...) — converts CAD objects (build123d / CadQuery / OCP / nested dicts and lists) into an OcpGroup hierarchy plus an instance list. Accepts per-object names, colors, alphas, materials, modes ((state_faces, state_edges) 2-tuples), and a default_color. Renderer-control flags include helper_scale, render_joints, render_mates, show_parent, show_locals.
  • tessellate_group(group, instances, kwargs=None, progress=None, timeit=False) — meshes the instances and returns the structures consumed by three-cad-viewer. kwargs can carry tessellation parameters like deviation, angular_tolerance, edge_accuracy, and render_normals.

For lower-level use, OcpConverter exposes to_ocp(...), which is what to_ocpgroup calls internally.

What gets shown

Inputs are walked recursively. The resulting tree mirrors the input structure:

input result
build123d / CadQuery / OCP shape a single OcpObject
dict a Dict group with one named child per key
list / tuple a List group with default-named children
ShapeList a ShapeList group exposing each item individually
Compound(children=[...]) (assembly) a group preserving the assembly hierarchy
Compound(...) (standard, no children) unwrapped to its inner shape
BuildPart / BuildSketch / BuildLine a single OcpObject for the builder result; BuildSketch adds a sketch_local sibling unless disabled

Compatibility

  • Python 3.10+
  • OCP 7.8 and 7.9
  • build123d (current)
  • CadQuery 2.x

License

Apache 2.0. See LICENSE.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

Metadata

Release files for ocp-tessellate 3.5.0

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for ocp-tessellate 3.5.0
File Size Uploaded
ocp_tessellate-3.5.0.tar.gz 85.9 kB Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for ocp-tessellate 3.5.0
File Interpreter ABI Platform
ocp_tessellate-3.5.0-py3-none-any.whl Python 3 none any Details

Total release size: 181.9 kB

Release files / ocp_tessellate-3.5.0.tar.gz

Download URL ocp_tessellate-3.5.0.tar.gz
Size 85.9 kB
Tags Source
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
e80a2c6c44d452a3540258566de6f19437b9d3727ef81bde57a5d4984edca35f
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
028c359cadedd313ccb804120b031fb4a8780b448064615d1f9c0298bb0c272d
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.13.12

Release files / ocp_tessellate-3.5.0-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL ocp_tessellate-3.5.0-py3-none-any.whl
Size 96.0 kB
Tags Python 3
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
7081770e809b454b49c89a26e995bd045ace93f6e80e70484f0a8831d6d2f99b
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
16b15503aba90c4b32df2f872788966cf6a766fb8f7bc5c09f30213416b28b17
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.13.12

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

3.5.3

2 release files

3.5.2

2 release files

3.5.1

2 release files

This release

3.5.0 This release

2 release files

3.4.2

2 release files

3.4.1

2 release files

3.3.0

2 release files

3.2.2

2 release files

3.2.1

2 release files

3.2.0

2 release files

3.1.2

2 release files

3.1.1

2 release files

3.1.0

2 release files

3.0.16

2 release files

3.0.15

2 release files

3.0.14

2 release files

3.0.13

2 release files

3.0.11

2 release files

3.0.9

2 release files

3.0.8

2 release files

3.0.7

2 release files

3.0.6

2 release files

3.0.5

2 release files

3.0.4

2 release files

3.0.3

2 release files

2.3.3

2 release files

2.3.2

2 release files

2.3.1

2 release files

2.3.0

2 release files

2.2.2

2 release files

2.2.1

2 release files

2.2.0

2 release files

2.0.6

2 release files

2.0.5

2 release files

2.0.4

2 release files

2.0.3

2 release files

2.0.2

2 release files

2.0.1

2 release files

1.1.2

2 release files

1.1.1

2 release files

1.1.0

2 release files

1.0.4

2 release files

1.0.3

2 release files

1.0.2

2 release files

1.0.1

2 release files

1.0.0

2 release files

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page