How To Flatten Sheet Metal In Solidworks Drawing

When you create a drawing of your sheet metal part a flat pattern is automatically created.

How to flatten sheet metal in solidworks drawing.

Open the sheet metal part for which you want to add a drawing. The default configuration of a sheet metal part contains a derived configuration called defaultsm flat pattern. Drawings of sheet metal parts can also contain views of the bent sheet metal part. To hide the bend lines expand flat pattern1 right click bend lines and select hide.

Flatten tool is selected this results in the flat pattern feature being unsupressed and the part will be flattened. Insert bends is great for an imported model that didn t start out as sheet metal but has a constant thickness. In the featuremanager design tree right click flat pattern1 and click edit feature. In the drawing view dialog box select a sheet metal component as file.

Right click flat pattern and select unsuppress. You can create dxf files of sheet metal flat patterns without creating a drawing. Select a format or click ok to use the default format. Select process bends and all of the features after it.

To create a drawing of a flat pattern. Bend radii and thicknesses are measured from the model and maintained making this one of the easiest ways to convert any design to a sheet metal part and get a flat pattern even if you don t have any flat faces at all. If appropriate select or clear the selection of the recover punch center option. In the sheet metal view area select flat pattern view.

The bend lines are shown by default when you unsuppress flat pattern1. In the flat pattern propertymanager under parameters select recreate flat pattern. Some items to note about the flat pattern feature. In this configuration the sheet metal option flatten is selected.

From the view palette drag the flat pattern. In the featuremanager design tree do one of the following. To flatten the entire part if the flat pattern1 feature is present unsuppress flat pattern1 or click flatten on the sheet metal toolbar. You can create dxf files of sheet metal flat patterns without flattening the part.