Full Version: Sheet metal in V4

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Draw Solid ARC is basically same function in Solidworks CREATE EDGE FLANGE this could certainly be an easy workflow to create most sheet metal parts with radius and projection angle as an input would be great.

Maybe with a head count for backers with some $$$ this function could be coded.

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Hi Carlos, so let me ask a little more detail about your current workflow.

You wrote:
> The workflow is like this: Select a solid face > Copy to clipboard > Paste > Rotate (usually 90ª) > Extrude. That's it.

For the "select a solid face" is this a single surface like one you made with Construct > Planar or is it a face that is joined to other faces in a solid? Or sometimes either?

Do you use the "Both sides" option in the Extrude step?

You could probably streamline your current steps with the regular MoI toolset by using the Transform > Rotate > Rotate axis command (set RotateAxis on a shortcut key). You'd want to enable the checkbox for "Make copies" so that you'd automatically drop a copy when doing the rotation. You only have to manually enable the "Make copies" checkbox the first time you use it, it will then stay on for the remainder of that program session. Then you'd pick 4 points to do the rotation, first 2 points define the rotation axis, then the next point defines the 0 angle point, then the final point gives the rotation angle. Have Straight Snap turned on so the final point automatically snaps at 90 degree increments. Then right click to end, if you continue to left click it will drop more copies.

It looks like this and should work with a plane of any orientation (here I've just set up a shortcut key for RotateAxis and run it one time previously to enable the "Make copies" checkbox):



Is that any better than your current steps?

- Michael

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And no need Manipulator! ;)

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Hi Pilou, yes RotateAxis can give you a lot of flexibility to do a rotation relative to specific points which tends to be difficult to do with manipulators. Manipulators tend to be good at rotating objects around some arbitrary central point, it's a pretty different thing. In CAD the primary focus is on accuracy.

- Michael

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Hi Michael,

Thanks for taking the time.

"For the "select a solid face" is this a single surface like one you made with Construct > Planar or For the "select a solid face" is this a single surface like one you made with Construct > Planar or is it a face that is joined to other faces in a solid? Or sometimes either?? Or sometimes either?"

Is always a face of a solid.

"Do you use the "Both sides" option in the Extrude step?"

No, never.

"Is that any better than your current steps?"

Not so much, first impression my workflow still looks faster, will test it tomorrow at the office, its night here : )

One thing that could improve is if the copy could be selected instead of the first (atm is the original face which remains selected).

This workflow is like this: Selet a face (of a solid) > RotateAxis (shortcut R) with Make copy selected> click 5 times (to set the axis(2) + angle(2) + right click) > Unselect the 1st face (1 click) > Select the new face (1 click) > Extrude (shortcut E). Done. The lenght of the extrusion is live on mouse pointer.

Thank you!

Carlos

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Hi Carlos, thanks for the additional info!

re:
> This workflow is like this: Selet a face (of a solid) > RotateAxis (shortcut R) with Make
> copy selected> click 5 times (to set the axis(2) + angle(2) + right click) > Unselect the
> 1st face (1 click) > Select the new face (1 click) > Extrude (shortcut E). Done. The
> lenght of the extrusion is live on mouse pointer.

If these steps do what you need I think it will be pretty easy to streamline this with a custom script.

How important is it to have the extrusion live on the mouse pointer? What if it was only entered numerically in an input field, with the benefit being that you'd see the extruded result right as you were doing the rotation and it would remember the last value so if you're doing the same thickness repeatedly there wouldn't be any extra extrude step? Or would that be undesirable?

- Michael

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Hi Michael,
Both options (live on mouse and lenght number) will be used (at one time, one or the other), but if i need to choose one i'll go for the 'live on mouse' because often i've to snap on some face/edge/vert.
Carlos

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Hi Michael,

only for inspiration :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m38VqL0t9sk
http://sheetmetal.me/formulas-and-functions/bend-allowance/

We can do it manually of course with respect to bending rules:



... but in future some 'Solid Arc' tool would be sufficient and it could help a lot.

Mik

Image Attachments:
Sheet metal workflow.jpg 

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For information also , a part of in my workflow:

Chri

Image Attachments:
SKETCHUP CONCEPT.jpg 

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@Chri
Why there are not "temporary" violet rectangular volume ?
Because you make a direct PushPull on the piece ?
Because sometime, maybe there will be more easy to put this temporary box and "pushpull" it than try to find a face to extrude! :)
(no need to orbit in complex position)

And for the Red Blue Yellow : it's allways the same or depending of the "Thickness" of the piece?
(have they same thickness ? )
There is no measure of the thickness of the principal piece! :)

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Hi Mik and Chri, those are some potential things for the future. At the moment I'll see about doing a face rotation helper.

- Michael

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Hi Michael,

I test your workfow vs mine, and mine is a little bit faster (10 vs 9 clicks) to get the result i need.

Anyway, thanks for your help.

Carlos

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Hi Carlos, the thing is that the workflow that I was describing will be much easier for me to automate, so if it produces the result you need tomorrow I will work on a script for you that will remove several of the steps to make it faster.

For example all the points for the rotate axis except a single one for the actual rotation I think should be possible to get set automatically coming from the edge you select. At least that would be the idea.

But that will only be relevant if those manual steps do work to generate your desired result.

- Michael

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Ok, thanks a lot.

I was just testing the both workflows looking for some speed gain, and learning something new on the way : )

Carlos

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@PILOU ,
Merci PILOU

Q : question
A : Answers


Q : Why there are not "temporary" violet rectangular volume ? ...
A : because it's easy to draw with M.O.I


Q : And for the Red Blue Yellow : it's allways the same or depending of the "Thickness" of the piece?
(have they same thickness ? )
A : about thickness : when you draw a sheet metal part , all the part has the same thickness.
( if you need somethings else , you need to weld a new part ).

A : about radius : when you bend a sheetmetal part , you need 2 parameter only , choose between inter radius , exter radius , thickness

A : you need also the angle !


Q : There is no measure of the thickness of the principal piece!
A : thickness and material are often write on the sheet or the part list


Chri

Image Attachments:
PARAMETER.jpg  tutorial_simpledrawing_zoomtitleblock.png 

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....those are some potential things for the future

Michael , Many thanks to spend time for us
Congratulations

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@Chri
Ok ok...
About Radius internal and External
They have same Center?
It's always Circles?

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Hi Carlos, please give the attached plug-in a try, instructions for installing a plug-in are here: http://moi3d.com/faq#Q:_How_do_I_install_a_plug-in_script.3F

Set up a shortcut key with this new command RotateAndExtrudeFace on it.

Select your face and then push your shortcut key, or you can also select it after you push your shortcut key, in which case you'll only need to do one click to select it (no "drill in" needed, the drill in is automatic since it knows it is only trying to select a face at this point).

Next step is to select one of the edges of the face which will be used as the pivot edge.

You will now be in the equivalent of the RotateAxis command but on the 4th point pick in there, the first 3 points will be already set up from the face's edges. So as you move your mouse around you will see the face being rotated. It will also not be necessary to do the last right-click that you needed in RotateAxis to end the "make copies" mode, this version exits the rotation part after you've done one click.

After you pick the point to set the rotation, the face will be selected and it will run the extrude command next automatically. If you don't want extrude to run automatically, remove the line from RotateAndExtrudeFace.js near the end that says moi.command.execCommand( 'extrude' );

You can also type in an angle value to do the rotation instead of picking a point but one tricky thing with this is which direction is a positive angle and which is negative will be determined by the orientation of the edge, if you want to do this you'll need to move your mouse first and observe which direction is reading as positive before knowing which direction to use.

Hope this helps streamline your process!

- Michael

Attachments:
RotateAndExtrudeFace.zip

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Wonderful streamlined script Michael !!!!

Thank you very much!

And it seems also easily customizable...

Best,

- Marco (mkdm)

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Hi Michael,

Thanks a lot for the script. It saves me a lot of time. So, its great!

I've a little question (also don't want to push it too much):

Instead of 'select one of the edges of the face which will be used as the pivot edge' its possible to selected 2 paralel edges of the face?

The idea is to offset the rotation axis.

Anyway, i'm happy with this script. Hope it didn't took you to much time.

Thanks.

Carlos

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