How to explode or project ALL faces to a plane

[Anonymous]

Hey Everyone

Say I have a collection of solid forms... I want to flatten it all out so I can send those flat sheet parts to a laser cutter....what is the process for this?

I've tried unfold and create flat pattern in 'sheet metal' but that does not work. I did spot 'project to surface' 

Any great tricks?

Thanks!

Ben

[I_Forge_KC · Accepted solution]

Nester should do this just fine.

https://github.com/tapnair/NESTER

Watch this video to learn how to use it.

[Anonymous]

THANKS so much for that! I'm new to Fusion.

I've got that installed but when I come to try it is brings an alert up: ' Faces are the same component, Each part must be a component."

I've tried to do things to the selection....is there something simple I need to do to my model before I try the nester??

Thanks!

[I_Forge_KC · Accepted solution]

Right click on each individual body in the tree structure and then select make component from body. This will promote the body into it's own component. Use the lightbulbs to hide things if this gets a little hard to tell what has already been promoted.

[Anonymous]

Thanks again L.Forge.KC!

Awesome I got somewhere...the shape projected and moved to a face. I'm still confused.

What I am trying to do is design a crystal...then explode all the faces in one go into triangles for cutting on a laser.

I've attached what kind of file my mate who used Rhino got. There was an explode function or something? or unroll.

This might be too much to ask! I'll keep trying to learn from Youtube too. 

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Ben 

[I_Forge_KC · Accepted solution]

I guess I saw the 3D shapes and it didn't register that you need each face flat.

Look at this screencast. I enter the patch workspace and use the unstitch command. Unstitch is the explode you are looking for. It strips each surface into its own body. From there, I can then promote those bodies into components. Notice I used the folder as my selection for that command to get them all. From there, you would use Nester to lay all of those surfaces on the same plane. You could then create a sketch with projection and export the dxf or create a drawing and export there.

Keep in mind, once you unstitch and start moving things around, it will be difficult to put it back together (about like putting it together in real life from sheet stock, actually). 

[Anonymous]

Hi man,

Thanks SO much for all your help. I got there in the end and am ready to send a DXF to the laser cutter. BUT there is no easy way to export an entire selection as DXF.

This is CRAZY!

Do you have an easy way? I found one way that projected the faces but it was VERY hard to select each of my 72 components/faces.

Thanks!!!

Ben

[Anonymous]

hi

ive been following those steps, but i found that it only works in flat/planar surface..

i couldnt select the radial/curved faces

is it true or that i just missed something?

here i attach the screenshot of the model that im working on,, and highlighted the face that i meant

thanks