Convex Hull

[ProFeature]

Hi everyone,
I recently submitted an idea to add a Convex Hull creation feature.

In geometry, a Convex Hull is the smallest convex shape that fully contains a given set of points or geometry. It can be imagined like a rubber band stretched around the outermost points.

If you have ideas for how Convex Hull could be useful in your workflows, please comment on the idea and share your use cases. This will really help show the need for implementing it.

And of course, I’d really appreciate it if you vote for the idea.
Thanks a lot for the support!

[tbraxton]

@ProFeature ,

Your idea submission is well defined and easily understood. It is refreshing to see this level of detail in a submission.

Caveat: I have not tried any of this, I am just throwing out a concept that may warrant exploration.

While thinking about how to deal with this within Creo only there is a concept that might bridge the gap to a full solution in Creo 11+. With the bounding box feature it supports orientation optimization to find the smallest enclosing volume. Using this new functionality  in conjunction with BMX feasibility/optimization tools you may be able to get some solutions to problems where you want to use a convex hull algorithm. If the bounding box features/parameters can be used in BMX analysis setup and goal definition it may support getting solutions in some applications mentioned in your product idea.

[ProFeature]

Hi @tbraxton 

Thanks for the feedback and for taking the time to explore possible workarounds.

While Bounding Box and Convex Hull are both “enclosing volumes,” they are not equivalent for the use cases I mentioned. A Bounding Box is often significantly larger than necessary because it is limited to a rectangular shape and depends heavily on orientation.

For many of the workflows I described, this extra volume makes a real difference, whether in clearance checks, material estimation, collision envelopes, or generative design constraints. A Convex Hull, by definition, wraps tightly around the actual outer geometry, so it represents the true minimal enclosing shape.

So while Bounding Box with orientation optimization can help in some scenarios, it does not replace the need for a real Convex Hull feature in the applications I am targeting.

Thnaks

[S_Edgenear]

I mostly used Shrinkwrap manual surface selection method, but I was convinced that the regular shrinkwrap feature already created the convex hull of a part or a group of parts in an assembly. I tried the outer shell method, which I thought would create a closed surface object (STL like) with the convex hull of the part, but that is not the case. Creo only copies the external surfaces, and leaves small details open as it excludes thoses detail surfaces.

So, now I'm convinced of the usefullness of this request. (can be added to the shrinkwrap feature as an additional algorithm, or to the bounding box feature (enclosed volume) as a sub-type of enlosed volume. Currently we have the "Bounding Box" as the implicit enclosing volume, as an additional request, I also suggested an explicit "Bounding cylinder) (for cylindrical parts), and this "Convex hull" could be added as an additional sub-type also.

Speaking of "Enclosed Volume" or "Bounding Box feature", it should also be improved to instead of generating surface geometry, to be able to generate wireframe geometry, which is vey usefull and sometimes necessary to detail parts in 2D, and currently we have to create that additional 2D geometry of the bounding box manually.