SolidWorks 2003 Sheet Metal/Surfacing

[tristram]

I have a situation where I have the flat layout profiles of some sheet metal parts and need to put them in thier formed view. The shape is pretty much formed by the two mating seams. (picture a banana, peeled it has 4/5 sides, when you stitch those seams, the shape should snap back)
This is a reverse engineering thing.
Any suggestions on how to do this?
PS- there are no nice 90 degree bends, it is a like a boat hull

 

[MadMango]

SW will only perform a bend on straight lengths.

If you had a flat pattern model (assuming it has no feature data) you could look into Flat Bends in Help for an answer.

If you have a flat pattern model (assuming you do have feature data) try looking for features that are supressed, like Process Bends. "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[tristram]

there are no models yet. I have a manual drawing which gives me the profile of the flat pieces and some fo the formed dimensions.1 welded piece out of 4 bent pieces.
Also it doesn't have to be in sheet metal, could just be a surfacing function?

 

[APPENG]

There is noe straight forward way to do this in solidworks, as mentioned above the sheet metal thing can only faltten straight bends like the ones you would create by using a press brake... short of that, you can model more complex sheetmetal parts and "flatten" them by using configurations of the part, but this requires you to know HOW the part will look in the unfolded state... sort of faking a flattened sheet metal part...

sounds to me like what you want to do is model the part in solidworks, and export the outer surface of the model and use a third party application that can unfold complex shapes such as FTI's FastBlank software

Hope that helps a little

Regards,
Jon
jgbena@yahoo.com