topic Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor? in Inventor Forum

Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Sun, 01 May 2016 01:10:21 GMT

Greetings fellow Inventor Forum Members, Using Inventor 2015 I have modeled a bowl with a 12 inch diameter and it has a height of 6 inches. In other words, it looks like half of a sphere. My goal is to slice the bowl into 5 equal slices along the center vertical axis of the bowl. Then my goal is to flatten all five slices and print each slice on a piece of 11 x 17 inch paper. The purpose for all this is to have patterns I can use to cut thin sheet metal in the shapes of the slices I flattened within Inventor. With the 5 thin sheet metal pieces cut to the shape of the pattern I will then be able to curve the thin sheet metal and weld all of the 5 slices together and end up with the same bowl in thin sheet metal that I modeled in inventor. The problem I am having within Inventor is figuring out what command to use to flatten each of the 5 curved slices onto a plane. How do I get Inventor to convert a curved slice of the bowl and layout flat on a plane so that I can print it out onto a piece of 11x17 inch paper? Any tips on how I can make this happen will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for the help.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

CCarreiras — Sun, 01 May 2016 01:59:30 GMT

Hi!

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

CCarreiras — Sun, 01 May 2016 02:07:45 GMT

Hi!

The first case will not flat cause is a plastic deformation. Inventor or similar programs doesnt compute such deformations.

If the second case fits your needs, tell me and i can help.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Sun, 01 May 2016 02:40:47 GMT

Ccarreiras, Thank you very much for your post. To answer your question. Yes, the second case (located on the RIGHT) will work nicely for me. You mentioned in the first case you used plastic deformation. What option did you use for the second case? From what I see the difference from the plastic deformation case and the second case is how the plastic deformation case seems to look more smoothly round compared to the second case. Nevertheless, my goal will be to take the slice you show in the second case and migrate it over to a drawing file. From here I would be able to print it out onto an 11x17 inch paper and then use it as a paper pattern. By the way, how did you slice the second case into five equal slices and then separate it and flatten it? Any info you can provide will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 15:15:58 GMT

I have been trying to get the measures right for a flat pattern near=sphere. Can you share? Or if you have a tutorial?

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

mcgyvr — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 16:21:59 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

I have been trying to get the measures right for a flat pattern near=sphere. Can you share? Or if you have a tutorial?

@Anonymous What version of Inventor do you have? As stated earlier versions are not capable of producing flat patterns of shapes like that unless modeled in the segmented way like shown above..

However newer versions have the "unwrap" command which will allow you to easily unwrap that surface to give a pseudo flat pattern of a simple revolved half sphere..

Do you have something modeled already that you can share?

Knowing Inventor version is important as files aren't backwards compatible

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 17:24:47 GMT

I currently have Autodesk inventor 2019, they should be upgrading me to 2021. I have one I started to model but could not “quite” get the edges to match.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

johnsonshiue — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 19:30:04 GMT

Hi! Please share your attempt. I think this has something to do with the K factor you use. By default, it is set to 0.44, which means the material tends to stretch a bit after folding. If you want the flat pattern measures the same as in folded model, you will need to set K factor to 0 or 1 (0 for interior measurement; 1 for exterior measurement).

Many thanks!

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 12:04:02 GMT

I have reduced radius of the side arcs of the gores, the only problem I am facing is the gores are overlapping when I assemble them. I would like to prevent this and get as close of a fit as possible. Your help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

CGBenner — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 12:07:20 GMT

@Anonymous

Hello. My apologies, but your post is not clear. Are you attempting to do the same thing as the original poster? Can you share some screen shots of your attempt, or add your files here?

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 12:30:32 GMT

The attached is what we have so far, the material in between is welded, we are trying to avoid overlapping of the plates.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 12:33:25 GMT

Hello apologies, I am attempting to do this with sheet metal, I have attached what I have, my goal is to prevent overlapping of the edges. With as minimum a gap as possible.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

JDMather — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 13:37:29 GMT

Attach Inventor file(s) here.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 14:51:17 GMT

I have attached the files here

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

JDMather — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 15:16:12 GMT

How many total panels do you want to use?

Are you going to go half 180° "sphere" or total 360° "sphere" or only two panels as in your assembly file?

(Also, you should install the Updates for 2020.)

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 15:37:35 GMT

The plan is to make this into a quarter sphere with three panels. I have only assembled two to see the overlapping before I added another panel.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

JDMather — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 15:56:53 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

The plan is to make this into a quarter sphere with three panels.

The section that you modeled does not go to the poles of the sphere.

Is that you intention, or did you really intend to go to the poles (top and bottom of the sphere)?

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 16:02:47 GMT

The intention is to have them attach at the poles like it is in the assembly file.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

JDMather — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 16:15:50 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

The intention is to have them attach at the poles like it is in the assembly file.

So, not at the poles of a R21 sphere.

I can make it like your assembly, but based on your sketch and the fact that this result is not representative of sphere, I am not convinced that you have adequately defined your true Design Intent.

Re: Printing out Paper Patterns from Inventor?

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 16:23:31 GMT

How do you suggest I edit the panel to allow it to assemble at the poles adequately?