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Sheet Metal Skins Fail

NikNYCNikNYC Member Posts: 68 ✭✭
Please fix your single surface sheet metal function. I keep having to switch to a solid model to be able to select edges to bend. But a solid model becomes too complicated when I have to sneak in little flanges with shaped edges.

These sheet metal parts have complex inner and outer curves to match an oddly shaped existing wall. But no matter what variation of IGES or STEP surfaces from Rhino I feed into Onshape, I simply cannot convert to sheet metal with the bends included. All I get is separate pieces for each surface.

A single surface model comes in as a shell without selectable edges, no matter how many times I rebuild and simplify the surfaces in Rhino and try every export option I can find.


Such a single surface model allows me to define shaped flanges, but since that fails in Onshape, I switch to a solid model and just add simple rectangular flanges after converting to sheet metal.

Then I have to run Boolean operations to trim the flanges in the sheet metal model, using solids created in Rhino.

What also failed was to create the bends as solid fillets in Rhino and importing the solid and trying to convert that to sheet metal and specifying the fillets as bends. Nor did it work to import the bends as single surface fillets. It works perfectly with the exact same surfaces only formed into a closed solid.

Onshape document with single surface models imported into it:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/c126104bff52fbff61fb5591/w/a64bfe85d781b6591eb6a9ae/e/c390631d88602b54f7736cfc

Is there a way to make a fold only extend a half inch onto the top surface when I utilize a closed solid for sheet metal?


Comments

  • Jake_RosenfeldJake_Rosenfeld Moderator, Onshape Employees, Developers Posts: 1,646
    @nik_willmore

    The reason the edges are not selectable is because they are not linear:


    If it were linear it would show a line when selecting it in the bottom right corner.

    Do they show as linear in Rhino?  If so, does Rhino have a parasolid export?  That may play better with our system.
    Jake Rosenfeld - Modeling Team
  • lanalana Onshape Employees Posts: 706
  • NikNYCNikNYC Member Posts: 68 ✭✭
    I neglected to even try native Rhino format, which works. In Rhino my surfaces are planar so their intersection in Rhino is indeed linear. However, using IGES export, I cannot select edges to fold in OnShape. Parasolid as suggested fails since only solids come through, not single surfaces joined into Rhino polysurfaces, so I can't even open the model. Rhino has a few generic flavors of Parasolid (Mastercam, SolidWorks, etc.), none of which import into OnShape without a "translation failed" error, which I stick to flat surfaces instead of solids.
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