[Forrest C]

I originally drew this in Solidworks but am unable to use the sheet metal tools they have available because of the type of geometry. It is essentially the underneath of a spiral staircase. I am going to wrap panels to the bottom side and need to flatten the pattern. I understand what is happening to the geometry and the challenges from a design standpoint. The physical forces at work make it difficult to install as well but certainly not impossible. Will BobCad handle this or does anyone here have the software needed to flatten this for me?

Thanks, Forrest

PS. I do not need the little leg on the bottom end, only the spiral part.

[mmoe]

If it's a solid model, you'll need a CAD system that has an "unroll" or "unfold" feature. Rhino can do that as well as Bonzai 3d and a few others. As far as I know, there is no unroll/unfold feature built into Bobcad. In order to do this, you may have to cut the solid so that it does not overlap itself prior to the unroll/unfold, which may be why you aren't able to do it in Solidworks currently. Once you have done so, you'll have the flattened geometry that covers a certain amount of the solid, so you should be able to figure out how to expand the geometry to work with a longer helix (hope that makes sense).

They may have added an "Unwrap" function to Bobcad in V26, but not sure if it will do what you're hoping or not.

[Forrest C]

Thanks Moe, I really only need the surface of the solid if that helps or even just the outline. I'm hoping someone knows how or has the software to help me extract that.

Forrest

[BurrMan]

Here's an unfolded version. Watch for a couple little sliver surfaces in there... I didn't do any sheetmetal analysis or anything like that on it.

[Forrest C]

Thanks Burr, how did you accomplish that? I downloaded Rhino3d free and opened my solid file. Within 5 minutes I had the flattened version without ever using Rhino before. Can't for the life of me figure out how to draw in it though.

Forrest

[BurrMan]

Yes Forrest, I used Rhino.