Is it good using inventor to design medieval armor?

[Anonymous]

Hi, what do you think about designing medieval armor in Inventor, is it good? what features/tools that Inventor offer to create something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVM-dCKhaL4

I can tell the how its works is: similar like making papercraft, start flat surface pattern, and assemble it, or in this case bend it. but how to bending/warping that flat surface in Inventor? can we do this?

and, lets says if we already create it in Inventor, it is possible to "unwrap" it again so we can see how the pattern can be made in real world after we modified it in inventor?

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi! This should be doable in sheet metal environment. Using multi-solid sheet metal workflows may help define the shape faster than modeling individual parts separately. In terms of flat pattern, Inventor is capable of flattening developable faces. It is not yet able to flatten (or unwrap) non-developable faces.

Many thanks!

[Curtis_Waguespack · Accepted solution]

Hi nicoantonio,

Inventor would do this quite easily. As johnsonshiue mentioned the sheet metal tools would be ideal for this. See this short video of create one part.

Once the parts are created you would place them in an Assembly file to put them all together.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

how about chest part or other organic part like shoulder?
can we "bend" the flat shape using that sheet meal method?

I think it is good using freeform, but I don't know about freeform, super rarely use it.

or do you guys have another method to create organic shape for chest/shoulder part?

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! For organic shape or non-developable shape, Inventor is not yet able to flatten it. There is a semi-automated workflow involving Autodesk MeshMixer (free).

1) Create a zero offset surface on one side of the organic shape body.

2) Make the solid body invisible. You will only see the surface body.

3) Export to stl or obj file. Make sure the export unit is the same as the document unit.

4) Start up Autodesk MeshMixer -> import the mesh file.

5) Go to Edit menu -> select the entire mesh -> Unwrap.

6) Export it as a stl or obj.

7) Import the mesh back to Inventor. Use Fit Mesh surface to fit a surface over the mesh. Or, draw a spline tracing the mesh boundary and then create a Boundary Patch surface.

8) Thicken the surface to desirable thickness.

Many thanks!