Cells
The cell creation tool is used to segment sketch according to different mathematical models.
Usage
Profiles
This selection corresponds to the profiles within the sketch we want the cell generation to happen on. The cell generation algorithm will segment the profiles depending on both sketch geometry and node creation.
Holes
This selection represent the profile we do not want to alter. This means that during cell creation, no path will originate from or go through this face.
For more information on node creation go read the Nodes section of this user guide
Triangulation type
The cell generation tool uses different algorithms to segment the faces, they work as follows:
Default Delaunay
As the name entails, this model uses Delaunay's triangulation algorithm to create triangles originating from the nodes (meaning created nodes as well as geometry corner points). We are using a constrained model that will optimize itself to not generate angles lower than 20° as much as possible. This model was chosen for its mechanical properties, more can be read about it here
Quadrilateral polygons prioritazation
This model is simply a post treatment operation applied to a Delaunay triangulation. It will first create triangles along the profiles before merging said triangles into quadrilateral polygons whenever possible. Selection of what triangle is being 'converted' is done on an internal metric named 'quad-quality' which simply refers to how close to a rectangle our potential quad-polygon is. The algorithm will sort the quads from 'best' to 'worst' and will merge triangles in descending order until no polygons can be created. Remaining geometry is kept as triangles. This model is mainly used when dealing with mostly rectangle sketches.
Cell generation does not have to be used in order to generate lattice-structures but is simply a way to segment larger geometries into smaller ones that can later be converted to lattice cells (see more in the extrusion section). To be used, the cell generation tool requires to have nodes generated prior (jump to node section here)