Projecting Points to Breps
Windows only

by Dale Fugier (Last updated:  Wednesday, December 5, 2018)

Problem

You would like to project a 2D point (x,y) onto a brep object in order to acquire the z-coordinate.

Solution

Use the RhinoProjectPointsToBreps function. In order to use this function you will need to provide the following:

  1. An array of one or more Brep objects.
  2. An array of one or more points to project.
  3. A projection direction (vector).

Sample

The following sample code demonstrates how you can use this function…

CRhinoCommand::result CCommandFoobarCpp::RunCommand( const CRhinoCommandContext& context )
{
  CRhinoGetObject go;
  go.SetCommandPrompt(L"Select surface or polysurface");
  go.SetGeometryFilter(
    CRhinoGetObject::surface_object |
    CRhinoGetObject::polysrf_object
    );
  go.GetObjects(1, 1);
  if (go.CommandResult() != CRhinoCommand::success)
    return go.CommandResult();
 
  const ON_Brep* brep = go.Object(0).Brep();
  if (0 == brep)
    return CRhinoCommand::failure;
 
  ON_3dPoint point(0.0, 0.0, 0.0); // some point on the world x-y plane
 
  // Prepare input to RhinoProjectPointsToBreps
 
  ON_SimpleArray<const ON_Brep*> Breps;
  Breps.Append(brep);
 
  ON_3dPointArray Points;
  Points.Append(point);
 
  ON_3dVector ProjDir(0.0, 0.0, 1.0); // world z-axis
 
  ON_3dPointArray OutPoints;
  ON_SimpleArray<int> Indices;
 
  bool rc = RhinoProjectPointsToBreps(
    Breps,
    Points,
    ProjDir,
    OutPoints,
    Indices,
    context.m_doc.AbsoluteTolerance()
    );
 
  if (rc == true)
  {
    for (int i = 0; i < OutPoints.Count(); i++)
    {
      ON_3dPoint pt = OutPoints[i];
      context.m_doc.AddPointObject(pt);
    }
    context.m_doc.Redraw();
  }
 
  return CRhinoCommand::success;
}