Convert STEP file type to STL

Question

I want to convert a STEP file into an STL file format using Python. I have looked online and it looks like the best option is to either use FreeCAD or OpenCascade (OCC). However, I am a beginner and do not know where to start from. I did some search online and found this out (a code to convert STEP to OBJ file).

Are there any python examples from FreeCAD (based on OCC) to convert STEP files to STL? Where should I start?

Answer 1

Here's a quick bit of code to start out:

import FreeCAD
import Part
import Mesh
shape = Part.Shape()
shape.read('my_shape.step')
doc = App.newDocument('Doc')
pf = doc.addObject("Part::Feature","MyShape")
pf.Shape = shape
Mesh.export([pf], 'my_shape.stl')

FreeCAD uses python extensively for user-facing functions. Basically, anything you do through the UI is done with python.

So it's useful to open up the UI, open up the Python console, and then do a function manually. You can often just copy the python directly from the console and edited it to serve your needs.