Flatten Piece

[hugo_gomesRVA54]

Hi,

I've recovered this design from an old Inventor file.

Now I need to make those big sheets (marked in green) flatten to laser cut, any tips how to do it?

[TrippyLighting]

Those strips cannot be flattened with the native tools in Fusion. The sheet metal functionality only works on developable geometry.

Someone @TheCADWhisperer or @jhackney1972 or @Warmingup1953 ) will post a workaround that involves Autodesk Meshmixer.

[hugo_gomesRVA54]

Yes that part of the developed geometry I'm aware, we can have it cuted in more than one part to overcome that problem.

The question now is that as it is I can't do nothing with the drawing.

[TrippyLighting]

---

@hugo_gomesRVA54 wrote:

Yes that part of the developed geometry I'm aware, we can have it cuted in more than one part to overcome that problem.

...

---

I don't think you understood what I wrote!

I posted a link to a Wikipedia article that explains what he term "developable surface" means. I suggest you follow the link and read that article 😉 

[billbedford]

Going back some 50 years, when I briefly worked in a shipyard drawing office, we produced tables of offsets, ie x and y values along a curve, which allowed the yard to make curved steel sheets from the flat paper drawings the DO produced. 

I'm sure you could be do this in reverse for your bell. 

[kacper.suchomski]

This can be done in Inventor using the Unwrap tool.

[hugo_gomesRVA54]

That's where the original elements was designed but we don't have inventor licenses anymore.

[hugo_gomesRVA54]

No no I think got it! Since there's a curve on the Y axis and another on the X trying to flatten the surface may not be possible because when you flatten the Y axis the X won't "know" how to react because it will probably creat bumps.

[TrippyLighting]

Yep. Correct.
The flattening you need can be done in inventor, but unfortunately still not directly in Fusion.

We've been asking for this for a long, long time!!! 

[Warmingup1953]

Will you simply laser cut and install flat as cut without forming to the varying radii?

[TheCADWhisperer]

@hugo_gomesRVA54 

Remove all of the beads.

You need only one panel. (They are all identical.)

You can use free Autodesk Meshmixer Unwrap tool to flatten the panel.

[Warmingup1953 · Accepted solution]

Here's my go via Meshmixer. E&OE!