Sheet Metal : Unfold a cylinder

[seb360]

Hi,

How can we unfold a cylinder (drawn only in extruding two circles) ?



Thanks for your answer

[jkramer]

Hi,

I think you'll need a little workaround. We did something similar once by making a cut, so that the cilinder is, say, 359.9 degrees closed and the last 0.1 degree a gap. Then model a tiny straight piece onto it, so that the gap is almost filled. The reason for this is that you need to select a straight "Base Face" to tell Sheet Metal what part of your model will stay in place during unfolding. That should do the trick.

Regards,
Jaap

[Marten]

Just some extra comment:

1. You have to attach material-info to the part to make it a sheet-metal part.
2. If you just need the flat, you don't have to model a tiny straight face to it. This is only necessary when you need to unfold in 3D in modeling. You can make a flat in annotation or use unfold to make the unfold on a workplane.
3. You don't have to make the small cut when you use unfold, however, you then can't specify where the cut has to be be made, and you will not have lines marking the cut.

Regards,

Marten Verhoeven