yang686526

re-orient flat pattern
hello,
i've got a problem again...
when i have a sheet metal part that has been drawn by his "profile" instead of base flange and flanges, it's not aligned to one 3 reference planes ( top right and front) when it is flattened.
when i rotate the part with the "body move/copy" all is allright, except the following: the flat pattern view from a drawing is still in the strange angle. ( not the cheapest position for laser cutting) (eg the sides of a 45° stairs, are not rotated so they lay horizontal)
re-mate the original sketch to the origin and all following features should fall into place so long as the part has been drawn good.
the problem is that these things are (most of the time) made in place...
so i don't know how to re-orient it.
if it is made in place then the mates will define the origin of the part.
and that makes it impossible to have the flat pattern horizontal?
and what if i could get the 3 angles the original body and the 'rotated' body are rotated? could i program a thing so i can let the flat pattern view rotate...
hi steven,
generally, when i encounter this issue, i don't try to correct it in the part model. i simply create the drawing and select the drawing view that the flat pattern is shown in. i then select "rotate view" option from the view toolbar, and i manually enter the required angle that will re-orientate the profile to where i need it. this can be done to any of the views. i usually know the actual angle that the panel is drawn at so it is straight forward to show parts how i want in the drawings using this method.
i tried the file you attached and entered a value of 45degrees on th flat pattern view and the pattern was re-orientated correctly.
cheers,
declan.
hi steven,
try re-orientating the drawing view instead of adding a "move/copy body" feature. select the flat pattern view in the drawing and select "rotate view" from the view toolbar. you can then manually change the view's angle, if you know the required angle its a very simple solution.
this is what i usually do when i want to re-orientate the stringers for a set of stairs for lasering purposes.
try it and let me know how you get on.
cheers,
declan.
the problem is that he "batch-creates" the drawings for lasering purposes, so i could like to figure out how to make it go automatic.
what i'm thinking of now is the following: i already get the dimensions of the part with the bounding box. if i could check the bounding box of the view, and check it with the dimensions of the "part" bounding box. if it's not ok, then start rotating if incremental till i get the bounding boxes equal ( with a certain tolerance)
start rotating by 45 ° increments. not ok, then 30°, else 10° then 5 and so on...
but it would take a lot of programming and will also slow down the speed of my already big macro...
thinking aloud here but i'm sure there will be a function within the api for finding out the 3 angles of a view..? i'll have a look when i get my machine finished just doing some updates and upgrades atm so no sw