sheet metal cut sheet layout

[MesaH]

I am fairly new to inventor, but have used Pro E (creo)
What I am trying find a way to do is to take a variety of sheet metal parts and layout the flat patterns for the parts in a way that can be exported to .dxf and fed into our plasma table. Currently I am creating an Inventor drawing (.idw) and adding flat pattern views of the parts I want and exporting that to AutoCAD and then positioning the parts. I don't like doing it this way because I am not very fast with AutoCAD, but more importantly every time something changes in Inventor I have to redo the AutoCAD layout. Ideally I would wait to do the AutoCAD layout until the design was finalized, but our office never seems to function like that. What I am hoping to find is a way to parametrically organize the flat pattern parts, either in a drawing file or a 3D assembly. I want to force the parts to be separated by .500" and then export that to AutoCAD where I will have to do minimal work to get it into the correct format for the plasma table.

Please let me know if there is a way to do this or a better method for setting up flat pattern cut sheets in Inventor

Thanks

 

[mcgyvr]

Well.. obviously a proper "nesting" program is a much better solution.. Did your plasma table not include any software? I don't know why people spend all this money on a plasma/cnc turret press,etc.. then don't get the proper software for it.
Other than that.. Learn Autocad better.. Its a VERY simple program to do what you need out of it.. But if you do nesting quite often stop messing around and get a proper program..
Some are under 100 bucks.

Here are a few..

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autod...good-sheet-metal-nesting-program/td-p/3383477

 

[mauzyb]

Depending on what version of inventor you use the directions could change but with 2013 and several before you can directly export DXFs.

In your browser window (the one with your work features and work planes, origins ect by default on left side of screen). There should be a "folded model tree" and a "flat pattern" tree. If there's not you didn't create a sheet metal part and your method is how you have to do it. If it was created as a sheet metal part. Right click on the flat pattern icon in your browser. you can then "save as" DXF or other format. Saves a couple steps anyway.