Scaling an Object

Scaling an Object allows to make it bigger or deforma its proportions. In this tutorial we will show how to deform a Cylinder (circular base) in order to get a Cylinder with elliptical base.

The following code:

Component myCylinder = Cylinder(10,40);

Declares a variable myCylinder, representing a cylinder of radius 20, and height 40. The Cylinder is centered on the xyz origin.

If we want to generate the OpenSCAD code for this cylinder, we simply run:

IndentWriter writer;
writer << myCylinder;
std::cout << writer;

This will send to the standard output the following

cylinder(h=40, r1=20, r2=20, $fn=100,center=true);

If we want to scale the cylinder in order to make its base face an ellipse with axis 30,20 and the same height

myCylinder.scale(30/20, 10/20, 1);
writer << myCylinder;
std::cout << writer;

If instead we want to make a scaled copy and leave the original cylinder unchanged we should write:

Component ellipticalCylinder = myCylinder.scaledCopy(30/20, 10/20, 1);
writer << ellipticalCylinder;
std::cout << writer;

The three parameters are respectively the scaling of the x, y, and z axis.

which will generate:

scale([45,0,0]){ 
  cylinder(h=40, r1=20, r2=20, $fn=100,center=true);
}

The full code is:

int main()
{
 
   // Cylinder of radius 1 and height 1
   Component myCylinder = Cylinder(1,1);
 
 
   // Scale the cylinder to get an elliptical base of 20x10 and height 30
   Component ellipCyl = myCylinder.scaledCopy(20,10,20);
 
   //generate the OpenScad code
   IndentWriter writer;
   writer << ellyCyl;
   cout << writer;
   return 0;
}

Next Tutorial: The Random Forest