I have been stuck on this part for a bit and tried looking threw the forums with no luck. I am trying to create a flat pattern to be sent out to water jet/laser. The surfaces do have some twist in them but I cant seem to find a solution. attached surface part files. I can send the assembly if some one will tell me how to attach?
Problem with surface flatten is that I loose all bend lines ect and makes it difficult for a sheet metal part. Not having the surfaces knitted was me trying to work around the flattening issue. Thank for your help.
Hi Max.. Here is a sheet metal loft of your part. In the screenshot my part is in magenta and you can see everything lines up fairly well. You can hide your bodies if you like. Just use the sheet metal "Flatten" tool to flatten the sheet metal part.
Note how I made the two sketches required for the loft then made fit splines from them for the loft profiles. Then a surface cut in order to cut out the circular portion at the end.
Dennis that looks to be spot on what I'm trying to do. can you upload your modified part so I can see the steps needed so I can finish the other parts in assembly?
Max,,, My modified part is in the part I posted earlier. I noticed you responded to Bjorn Hulman indicating that you wanted bend lines on your flat pattern. The method that I proposed will not give you bend lines since the bends are freeform due to the twists in your part. If you are using Premium you could use Bjorn's method (with surface flatten) and and translate the edges (from previousl 3d sketches on edge) and come up with lines to indicate where the part is twisted differently. I would not call these bend lines. Transitions from one twist to another. Note that the center section of your part is indeed flat (not twisted). Also if you are concerned about a neutral bend axis on this you could flatten off a mid-surface (50%) or offset to another position within the material thickness prior to flattening.
The pic below is Bjorn's model with the edges translated also.
Hi Max,
are you using SW2017? It has a surface flatten feature you can use.
Also, if you knit the surfaces, you only have to thicken once.