Roadmap

These are the top picks among the features planned, considered or already prototyped for planex2d after v0.1, grouped by the part of the library they extend. They reflect the current plans, which develop as the work goes on, so the list has no dates.

Installation

  • Prebuilt pip wheels. pip install planex2d installs a ready-built package, without a C++20 compiler or CMake. Today pip builds planex2d from the source distribution (see Installation).

Kernel

  • A core without netgen and OpenCASCADE. Own spline curves, so that planex2d installs and runs on its own, with netgen and OpenCASCADE needed only where a part goes to them.

  • Rational splines. Exact ellipses, elliptical arcs and other conics, and DXF ellipses read exactly instead of sampled.

Sketch

  • Parametric curves. Curves given by equations, x(t), y(t) or y = f(x), so that NACA profiles, involute gear flanks and cam profiles are exact rather than fitted through points.

  • C2 blends. A connection between two elements whose curvature is continuous as well as its tangent, as for smooth flow ducts. Fillets and tangent arcs keep only the tangent continuous.

  • Parametric sketches from drawings. A DXF file or another imported outline as a sketch with inferred constraints (coincident, horizontal and vertical, tangent, equal radius), edited through its dimensions.

Constraints

  • Inequality constraints. Bounds such as a distance of at least 2 mm or a radius of at most 5 mm, which the solver keeps.

  • Constraint diagnostics. Checks of the geometry (open ends, duplicates, self-intersections), conflicts and redundancies explained by the constraints they come from, and the free motions that remain, shown with the dimensions that would fix them.

  • Sensitivities. How each point of the boundary moves when a dimension or a parameter changes, the shape derivative, for gradient-based shape optimization.

Measuring

  • DE-9IM relations. The relation matrix of two shapes, which records how their interiors, boundaries and exteriors meet, and the predicates built on it: touches, contains, within, overlaps and crosses.

OpenCASCADE

  • Silhouette projection. The outline of a 3D part seen along a direction, including the contour lines of curved faces such as the sides of a cylinder, as planex2d geometry. Today px.Project projects the edges (see Sketching on and projecting 3D geometry).

Files and integrations

  • More file formats. BREP read and write without netgen or OpenCASCADE, SVG reading, Gerber and Excellon readers and a Gerber writer, KiCad tracks with their width, GDSII export, PSLG export for Triangle, MeshPy and CGAL, and pickling of planex2d objects.

Experimental

  • Deformable shapes. A stable version of the deformable shapes, with an in-place Deform(d) for time stepping and a mesh that follows the moving boundary.