Flattening Sheet metal

[Steve Baer]

Hi,
Here are your options for Rhino4 and unrolling of surfaces:

http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.as...lattening.html

Thanks,
-Steve

[rteng97]

hi ChuckG,

please check solid3dtech: www.solid3dtech.com, they have software to do the unfold based on rhino or autocad, it can handles surfaces with double curvatures.

Eric

[rteng97]

there are a lot of softwares can do this, most of high end CAD/CAM software have solutions like ProE, Intelliship (now called smartMarine). Cadds5 (also from ptc), Catia, Expander based on Rhino3d, solid3dtech, multisurface. I think the cheapest you can find is from solid3dtech, but if you have money, try good ones. From I have read, TouchCAD don't do the way you want, but I am not sure.

Here is another questions, whether it works.

If the surfaces are ruled surfaces, I can say all of them work well. Now if a surface has double curvatures, then there are no solutions from math point of views. Some of them have tried to reverse the FE analisys approaches and the idea is that if you push a plate, its shape will change, now my shape is changed, so with all the material coefficents, I should be able to calculate the original shape, but I have never seen an credible result. We have tried to calculate the area of material used for tent design, the result is not so impressive.

So any software you use, the result will be approximations for any surfaces with double curvatures. So the best solution for us will be just try different ones and compare the results.

You can easily break any such softwares when you try to unfold a soccer ball.

Hope it helps.