I have a model of a cylindrical vacuum chamber with several holes and need to project the whole inner surface of the long part to a plane ("unroll it"). Is there a way to do this in solidworks?
What I want to end up in the end is a sketch of the positions and shapes of the holes that I could use to manufacture a sheet, that when roled to a cylinder exactly matches the geometry of the chamber inside.
Are you thinking of something like this? I did an offset of 0 on the inside surface then split, delete face, then did a sheet metal "Insert Bends". Your model is still in the part but hidden.
Use the sheet metal "Flatten" for flat pattern.