Sheet Metal for folding paperboard and packaging

[mcramblet]

I was just given access to preview the Sheet Metal functionality, so I wanted to give it a quick test for one of my intended purposes, folded paperboard products. When specific 2D dielines are supplied and need to be incorporated into renderings, it has always been a pain to model and fold them up. This was my very first attempt and with some bumbling around, I was able to get a pretty good result. Some more experimentation and practice are needed, but I think this has real good potential for those in the packaging industry.

[promm]

@mcramblet,

Thank you for sharing your model, showcasing your use of the sheet metal preview.  In your opinion, what would be the top feature/enhancement to sheet metal to improve your paperboard and packaging workflow?

Cheers,

Mike Prom

[mcramblet]

@promm-

To be honest, I don't know yet. I'll need to go beyond this simple first test, become more familiar with the tool and figure out the best possible workflow using what is available. The common workflow is to start out flat and fold it up from there, whether done in a specialized 2D CAD software or done manually in 3D CAD. If you are interested in taking a quick look at what is probably the packaging industry CAD standard and how it handles this, here is a link:

https://youtu.be/wgeFj3FYhBI

This is obviously a very specialized 2D CAD application, with a tiny bit of 3D thrown in, but only for visualization purposes. This link was for informational/reference only, as there is no comparison between Fusion 360 and ArtiosCAD.

Over the next week or so, I hope to spend some more time trying to use the sheet metal tool to do this type of work and I'll post more examples and more of my findings. Like I said before, I think there is potential here, I just need to dig into it more.

[mcramblet]

Another example of the "Sheet Metal as Paper Board" workflow. With a little more use and practice, the sheet metal functionality for this type of use is becoming very quick and practical for everyday projects. Not necessarily a "flashy" use of it, but very helpful, nonetheless.

[promm]

@mcramblet,

WOW, thank you so much for sharing.  Great renderings, keep up the good work.

Mike

[brianrepp]

Holy guacamole this is awesome @mcramblet, thanks for sharing!

[CarlosFerreiraPinto]

Hello mcramblet, great results.

I'm a Packaging Designer with years of experience in this industry. Used and trial some of the industry's standards software like Esko or Engview.

I will use the new Fusion's Sheet Metal for both (sheet and paper/cardboard) workflow. Already have SpaceClaim 2012 but never got good and fast results.

Wish i have acess to this beta as i could have some real world/workflow feedback for you guys.

Thanks. Cheers.

Carlos

[jean-michel_legoff]

HI,

very impressive,

but can you share if the final render is done in Fusion360 as well?

How did you unwrap UV's? or are the faces rendered with "planar projection" textures ?

Many Thanks

[SEIZMICdesign]

cardboard & paperboard is a bulk of how I will be using sheet metal in Fusion also, and a couple things pop to mind.

As discussed in the other thread, having interference warnings and still be able to manipulate component would be ideal. 

However my dream scenario is this: There are a certain number of industry standard folds & features for packaging. What would be Supercool is to have some of these as templates. So I could conceivably start out with a rectangular solid, tell Fusion which is the top, which is the bottom, and which is the seam corner, and for each selection have options for which of these industry standard folds & features is desired.

I realize this is not exactly what Fusion's primary target is for this functionality, but the market is HUGE if you could get some of this implemented. 

Another thing to think about for packaging designers would be the ability to align one flange to another. Right now, as far as I know, all we have is angle. But let's say I'm making a square wrap. I have the bottom panel - flange 1. then I go up - flange 2, over - flange 3, down - flange 4, and then back towards flange 2 - flange 5 to glue. It would be an extreme time saver to be able to make flanges 1 & 3 and 2 & 4 parallel and then flange 5 flush with flange 1. This way I could set flange 2 at 10º and flange 4 would change accordingly creating an parallelogram with the changing of only one parameter. Currently, AFAIK, I would have to go and update each angle independently to get all flanges into proper alignment. Maybe this is not the case?

Another case for flexible alignment would be abutment.

 

so in the images above can be seen a couple examples. In the first image is an example of flange alignment. If I could align that top flange to the fold-over that would be sweet. then if I decided the sides needed to be taller, the other flanges would just move to fit. I realize there's some dicy back flow cart-before-horse stuff there, so that may be unrealistic.

In the second image, It would be nice if I could set that flange to meet (or offset) the bottom surface. Again, if the hight of the sides change, I don't have to go back and re-adjust that flange. Or if the thickness of the material changes.

Also there're weird artifacts that show up in the corners. I'm sure I'm just not tweaking the right settings, but it seems peculiar.

Heck, if we're going to go down the packaging wormhole, might as well have a library of standard cardboards just like metal. Which reminds me; when Fusion makes the flat, there are two lines signifying the beginning and end of the bend. But it is preferred to have just one line in the center of the bend for scoring. 

Someone mentioned rendering. It would also be great to be able to get the flat from fusion, create the die line, set up the art in Illustrator, export to png, then map the art back onto the model. This cannot be done now. You can try, but it freaks Fusion out and creates all kinds of weird artifacts. I have to go in and split the art up panel by panel and map each face individually. Very time consuming.

Also being able to easily mirror flange features would be good.

Lots of other little details, but those are some big ones off the top of my head. 

[SEIZMICdesign]

If Fusion could do stuff like what that link showed.... would be pure magic.

[mcramblet]

@jean-michel_legoff-

Sorry for the delay in responding, I must have overlooked the notification. The rendered images were done in Keyshot. They weren't UV mapped textures, they were essentially planar projections. In the case of these, I actually applied the textures in Rhino, which is faster than doing it in Keyshot, and the Rhino plug-in for Keyshot carries the textures over.

I rarely use Rhino for modeling, but it's support textures and ability to use UV textured models, make it a decent tool for preparing models for rendering.

[SEIZMICdesign]

I posted this video from Adobe Max in this thread also, but I'm reposting it here too because it's it's a super big deal. Having robust paper/paperboard/cardboard features built in to Fusion would be a homerun/slam dunk/touchdown/doublerainbow for the thousands of product development companies out there. Fusion could be the ultimate product development tool. While this Adobe tool will be nice, you still won't be able to build your packaging directly around your product in "real time". Like I mentioned in the linked thread, it would also be great to have a "vac-form" tool for pulling a sheet over a body/component. Another thing I just thought of would be the ability to "fill" empty space in a package automatically to quickly/easily create custom foam packing. But again, that's a whole other topic/thread.

EDIT: I just noticed this thread is almost 2 years old. I feel like not much has happened with sheet metal in the mean time. Am I wrong?