Flattening geometry HELP

[Rick Henrickson 65]

ok i have a curved part that I want to make a flat pattern out of, I have never done this please help

[JohnW@Kauffman]

Try X Form > Project. When you select the geometry the dialog box opens up and allows you several options. Projecting to a plane is one I use when flattening curves.

[88Matt]

What John said is the most accurate. a less accurate way but quicker is the sillouette boundary c-hook. Or so guys will run a toolpath and save it as geo.

 

HTH

[Rick Henrickson 65]

X form project just makes a shadow under the part. when the part is flattened it should be longer then the original curved part.

Sillouette is the same.

[John13]

I'm not sure, but can't you do x-form roll, then after selecting your geometry, be sure you have the unroll button selected in the roll pop up

[Rick Henrickson 65]

I tryed that but roll and unroll only seems to work for cylindrical shapes not swarfed surfaces

[JohnW@Kauffman]

quote:

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not swarfed surfaces

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Maybe FlattenSurf c-hook? I understand what you're going for but I haven't had to do it either.

 

edit: played with it on a part I have, it projects one surface at a time and produced overlaps. Don't think that will work either. Sorry I'm no help.

[Rick Henrickson 65]

Hey I appreciate the try though, maybe I will just have to go to my old job and use solidworks real quick.

[Zero]

if you can put the file on the ftp or email it to me i could do this real quick for you in rhino

[Rick Henrickson 65]

I wish I could but the regulations here won't allow that. Thanks though

[Zero]

you could try it out in rhino for yourself, just dl the trial version. its fully functional and gives you 30 saves

[Rick Henrickson 65]

I will give that a whirl, Colin works the afternoon shift here he just showed me how to do it in mastercam, it is cumbersom but it can be done.

[Colin Gilchrist]

- I love a challenge. Mastercam does have the ability to flatten a surface and map the curves from one to another.

[John Summers]

Rick, FlattenSurf.dll will flatten a surface within limits. Windshields are a good example. Nothing is really stretched. The lengths of the curves stay the same in both U and V directions, so the flat outline is a guide to cutting out material. Map.dll will map curves from the curved surface to the flat, and vice-versa. MAP can also map between completely unreasonable surfaces (it has no concience). For instance, you can map text from a rectangular box to a curved surface. It usually helps to choose the correct primary flattening direction. Or try it both ways, and see which direction makes the most sense.

[Fig sign]

Look on my dirty tricks thread I covered it pretty good

http://www.emastercam.com/ubb/ultimatebb.p...7505;p=1#000008

All files moved to Iskander_Lazytricks folder on FTP

[Kannon]

Iskander..which one is it in your folder?

[Fig sign]

File: ZAZY4FINAL.ZIP

File: LAZY6.ZIP

[Kannon]

Thank you..

[Fig sign]