How to flatten/develop/unfold... ?

[Aleksan]

Hello,

I have to flatten/develop/unfold hundreds of surfaces (coming from parts). They are mostly complex, even when they appear to be ruled they are not necessary that.

I have read here that V5 “unfold” will give me hard time, never tried. On bright side I deal with pretty wide tolerances, so “approximate” flattening will work for me. This is to aware you that I will not get time (money) to repair (recreate) all problematic surfaces. Although I appreciate any tip on that, as well. Company will buy module/function. I don’t want to go trough hassle of purchasing such and end up with: I have to do it manually…
I have option to work on V4 as well.

Any suggestion?

Thank you!

Bit about me: firs post here. Now Aeorospace V4/V5, before Autmotive interior, exterior plastic. From bit of Cadam, V3, acad , V4 to V5 few days ago…(Not that “mature” though, just such companies ).

 

[RCDLtd]

If the surfaces you wish to unfold are not "ruled" then I believe you will require an analysis package. FastBlank works well for me.

If there is a way of getting Catia to recognise near-ruled surfaces and aproximate them to ruled so that they can be unfolded I'd be very interested in hearing how - that would be useful!

 

[jackk]

V5 will not do it, but V4 will.

It's been a few years (and a couple companies), but I think you want to use the Develop function.

 

[catiajim]

Use V4. V5 will (eventually) have a function to do this. There are a couple of CAA applications that will do this, but they will do a lot more - most of them perform formability and producability analysis as well. As such they tend to be $$$$.

 

[Aleksan]

Hey people, you are responding really fast!
Thank you!