Sheet Metal Grain / Good Side Notation

[TOMLADISCH6248]

On sheet metal parts, we often have to consider both grain direction and "good side." As a rule, I orient grain in the X direction of the flat pattern and the good side is face as "front." However, it is easy to make a mistake especially as the parts become more complex as it is more natural to mark these two attributes at the folded part level. So instead, I emboss an arrow on the folded part and then appropriately change the flat pattern until i see the arrow and have pointing in the correct grain direction. Then I remove or suppress the embossed arrow because I don't want it going to our CAM software.

It would be great for Inventor to allow you to set a grain direction and "good side" from the folded part that would translate to the flat pattern.

[jletcher]

This can be done already.

 All you have to do is pick the face you want up before unfolding. See pics.

[TOMLADISCH6248]

Thank you jletcher. This does indeed work.

However, to update the "good side" of the part would require you to delete the flat pattern and rebuild. This is fine if all the geometry resides in the folded part, but often, we have additional "flat pattern" only geometry which is there for machine processes but removed later.

Furthermore, it does not resolve the "grain direction" issue.

If these were attributes of some sort, they would then probably also be accessible in drawings, another very helpful feature.

[jletcher]

However, to update the "good side" of the part would require you to delete the flat pattern and rebuild. This is fine if all the geometry resides in the folded part, but often, we have additional "flat pattern" only geometry which is there for machine processes but removed later.

 Why was things added if it was wrong?  Don't you think you should have made this right before adding other things to a part that is wrong? Even if they add the feature you ask  you would have to delete the old un-folded anyway so this is mute point you pointed out.

 for grain direction you made the part you don't know if the flat pattern is correct by looking at it?

 We have a texture that has the grain so we know  if it is wrong in the flat pattern if so just rotate.

  It is not that hard to do.

  We put <> on grain length like BLANK SIZE <46.250> X 12.125. I have it set up with ilogic to add it when flat pattern is made..

[jletcher]

I will give kudos to this because there are a lot that could benefit from this.

 But do think it is not needed. Basically because 99% of the time after picking face it is right in the flat pattern for my clients I teach.

[TOMLADISCH6248]

Why was things added if it was wrong?  Don't you think you should have made this right before adding other things to a part that is wrong?

There are many cases where both sides of the material are visible (one more than the other). However, even though we think we might have picked the side that was more noticable to be the "good side," on occasion, this turns out not to be true. And with as many parts as we make, mistakes are certainly made that aren't discovered until production.

Even if they add the feature you ask  you would have to delete the old un-folded anyway so this is mute point you pointed out.

I was hoping that by adding the feature, that deletion of the flat pattern would be unneccessary.

We have a texture that has the grain so we know  if it is wrong in the flat pattern if so just rotate.

Grain direction in our manufacturing process is very iterative. We have parts with many odd angle cuts and aligning the grain can be tedious. This is because of fitting parts to available materials, bend performance in grained material which varies greatly when bending parallel or perpendicular to grains, etc. We don't typically use textures as we have had reliability issues with textures and appearances (likely for our misunderstanding of that component of the tool and passing content back and forth between inside and outside users).

We put <> on grain length like BLANK SIZE <46.250> X 12.125. I have it set up with ilogic to add it when flat pattern is made.

I will certainly investigate this suggestion to see how everyone in our manufacturing process responds.

[jletcher]

Yes I have had issues with the texture I will agree on that.. Most when Autodesk changed to make Inventor a rendering software rather than a manufacturing software. I don't know where their head is at right now but I do know it is not on their shoulders..

[TOMLADISCH6248]

In general, we like the Autodesk tools and their advancement in technology. This is a major reason we use Inventor vs. competing software.

We like the rendering portion of the software integrated into the modeling software because besides manufacturing, we need to sell our products, create manuals and do other tasks that require a nice looking polished model. (I just wish there were more efficient ways to get rendered or "Ray Traced" screen captures of out of Inventor with set resolutions and alpha - perhaps another idea. We do use Inventor Publisher but it is clumsy in comparison to Inventor.)

That being said, because of the sometimes eratic behavior of those features, I don't like relying on portions of the rendering related items for manufacturing.

I can trust that when I update versions of Inventor that flat patterns and folded parts will remain the same or improved accuracy. However, material appearance implementation has continued to change in sometimes subtle fashions which suprise us at the worst times.

[jletcher]

In general, lol I like that..

Inventor Textures did this without all the bugs they have now though. Not sure how long you have been using Inventor but it was easier and not such a mess before.

 What they should have done was make it link better with their rendering software rather than destroy my Inventor.. You would think they made both software it would be easy to link for them.. But this is how they get to raise the price and this is what they really want to do so the investors are happy and not the end user.

[dan_szymanski]

Accepted ideas [US-49994] [US20042]. Thanks!

[dan_szymanski]

One of the ideas here have been implemented within Autodesk Inventor 2015. Special thanks to the author of this Idea and likewise to everyone who cast your Kudo for it. Within the Sheet Metal environment, you can now define the “A side” or “Good Side” of a sheet metal part to indicate the punch direction. Likewise a “A-side Definition” browser node entry also becomes available. The “A-side” can be highlighted via a context option and likewise highlights when placing punch features. Please be sure to check out the “Define A-side” feature in Autodesk Inventor 2015. The Grain direction Idea [US21897] is still currently Accepted. Thanks!

[Mark_Wigan]

hi guys, we need to be able to redefine the A side or delete it without deleting the flat pattern.

sorry to say that without that ability then really i think that the tool is completely redundant.

[Sinkiewicz]

When this idea (grain direction) do?

Please also merge (direction grain) in one step with "Define A-Side & Direction grain"

[Sinkiewicz]

When this idea ("Define A-side" after flattened pattern) do?

Also good to see merge "Define A-Side" with "direction brush"

Also good be automation for material bump on that face.

Sorry for bad english.

[Yijiang.Cai]

@Mark_Wigan @Sinkiewicz,

When the a-side definition is created and flat pattern is also created, do you want to redefine/delete the  a-side but flat pattern is kept? When the a-side and grain direction are merged to be defined, do you want to redefine them too?