Need a fast way to get the footprint of elements

[MattKincaid]

I need a way to get the footprint of an element.  I have some code that does this by extracting the solid geometry of the element, then grabs the faces of the solid and performs transforms on the faces to project them onto the XY plane.  Then use a third party library to merge the resulting faces into a single face and use the boundary of that face as the footprint.  This works well, but can perform slowly if there is a large number of faces.

Can anyone think of a faster way?  Bonus points if it can flatten an element's geometry onto an arbitrary plane, not just the XY plane.

Thanks!

[MattKincaid]

I need a way to get the footprint of an element.  I have some code that does this by extracting the solid geometry of the element, then grabs the faces of the solid and performs transforms on the faces to project them onto the XY plane.  Then use a third party library to merge the resulting faces into a single face and use the boundary of that face as the footprint.  This works well, but can perform slowly if there is a large number of faces.

Can anyone think of a faster way?  Bonus points if it can flatten an element's geometry onto an arbitrary plane, not just the XY plane.

Thanks!

[jeremytammik]

Share you code. It sounds interesting. 

Here is mine:

https://github.com/jeremytammik/ElementOutline

I can't think of a better or more efficient way than the approach you describe.

Cheers,

Jeremy

[jeremytammik]

Share you code. It sounds interesting. 

Here is mine:

https://github.com/jeremytammik/ElementOutline

I can't think of a better or more efficient way than the approach you describe.

Cheers,

Jeremy