Disclaimer: I have never worked with OCC before and want to asses if what I want to do can be done with OCC. I am not asking for a step by step guide.
I am working with an in-house Finite Element code, written in Fortran (with existing interfaces to other C/C++ libs). I am looking for a tool to compute signed distance functions (and a bit more) for a cloud of points in 3D space to a 3D surface, described by some kind of continuous CAD geometry (i.e., not STL, but something like STEP or iges, etc.)
Here is what I want to do in detail:
- for a number of points in 3D space, compute the shortest distance to the CAD surface
- figure out if the points of the point cloud lie inside or outside the CAD surface (i.e., sign the distance function)
- for a different set of points in 3D space, find the closest point on the CAD surface
- for that closest point on the CAD surface, compute the outward surface normal
I am currently using a different library that can handle STL files and I am doing all this, though I would like to handle CAD geometry directly without converting them to a discretised format like STL.
Is it possible to do the things that I want to do with OCC?
What would be a good way to start? Ultimately I want to do this from within my Fortran Finite Element code but I think to prototype everything and get started with OCC, the pythonOCC interface is most convenient, right?