is this even possible

[mechpins]

I would like to make a fabric bowl by drawing the bowl in Solidworks and then having soldworks cut the part and place it into a 2D drawing. I thought that maybe I could do this with the sheet metal tools but I have been unsuccessful. Is there an add-on that I can buy for solidworks that will let me do this? I know that there are other programs that are capable of this but I like SW and would love it if I could find a way to do it within SW.

Thanks

 

[ctopher]

Can you show a picture of the part? I'm not 100% clear what you want to do. You can create just about anything you like and SW will make a 2D dwg.

Chris
SolidWorks 06 5.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 01-18-07)

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I'm a bit confused by your terminology;

"fabric bowl"
Do you mean fabricated or a bowl made from a fabric (cloth)?

" ... then having soldworks cut the part"
????

Although a bowl-shaped sheet metal part can be created, you will not be able to flatten it. SW cannot handle the sort of plastic deformation calculations involved in creating such a part.

 

[mechpins]

I made a bowl in SW and now I want to take the bowl and have SW tell me what shape I need to cut a fabric piece to make that shape of bowl. I am looking for SW to do what it can do with sheet metal only for fabric. I do not think that SW can actually do this but before I go out and look for a diferent program I thought that I would ask the pros. Maybe you know about some function or add-on that I do not.

Thank you for any help,
Ian

 

[mechpins]

I am working with cloth and have been asked to make a bowl from the material.

 

[Heckler]

When I use to work for LM, I designed composite structures. Those composite structures were multiple layers thick and each layer had a unique ply bias. At the time we were using SDRC IDES to define the surfaces. So I would build the model one surface at a time. Then I would export each layer to this "ply unwrapping software". There I would assign all the material properties including ply bias and any other unique features (cuts, or rips). This software would make a flat pattern that was cut on a CNC cuter. I can't for the life of me remember the name of the "ply unwrapping software". We were on the cutting edge

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SWx 2007 SP 2.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
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(In reference to David Beckham) "He can't kick with his left foot, he can't tackle, he can't head the ball and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that, he'

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I am not familiar with any software that can do that kind of calculation. It probably does exist but I imagine it would be fairly costly.

If you find something, please post details back here.

 

[mechpins]

The closest thing that I have found so far is made by Gerber Technology. I wish SW had some of this capability.

http://www.gerbertechnology.com/default.asp?contentID=102

Thanks guys

 

[MadMango]

You need an add-on package that can calculate the deformed material, such as those used for stamping sheet metal. This will require BlankWorks or similar.

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/partners/partnerproducts.html

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[rfus]

This may or may not work for you....Tessalate your bowl to polygons by outputting it as an .stl. This 3d Unwrap program will let you unwrap the polys and project them to a plane for 50 bucks. Try the demo first. It may work for you.

http://www.unwrap3d.com/index.aspx