Stretch or warp (not wrap) a sketch or solid along a curve

craig_ringer

Hi folks.

I have a linear pattern I need to emboss into the flat side of a surface that follows a curved profile. (Ignore that the pattern still has some non-closed sections, I'm working on that).

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to "warp" the pattern sketch, or a set of solids or surfaces extruded from it, around a curve. What I'm trying to do is a sort of coordinate space mapping that will bend the pattern around the line. Points on the outside of the curve will be further apart, points on the inside of the curve will retain their current distance apart.

This isn't a loft, since I'm not working with a cross section. It isn't a wrap, since the curve isn't a cylinder or arc, and the result should be in-plane with the curve not normal to it like a wrap is. It's not a sheet-metal bend, because I'm trying to perform an in-plane distortion. Is there any way to do this with onshape?

Here's the pattern (left) and surface shape (right).

Here's the design - ignore the broken connectors etc, I'm in the middle of splitting it in half too. The most recent saved version is a stable model (but lacks the pattern sketch).

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/150b56a78abd474218ba06f0/w/7e6c06cb75a80d9de12615a8/e/6b22621ed12c99a05ec519cf

Importantly, the pattern will form many distinct surfaces or solids, not a single continuous surface or solid. Though I can probably connect it all up into a single tool to use in a boolean operation if that helps.

Here's a simplified example of the concept I'm trying to achieve, except that in this example the way I've prepared the "desired result" lacks the distortion the ellipses would have in a real "bend" of the pattern. The sides of the ellipses on the inside of the curve would be shrunken, and the sides on the far side of the curve would be stretched/wider.

Here's the doc to play with: https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/curvepattern.htm

The "curve pattern" tool https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/curvepattern.htm is close-ish to what I want, but not quite there.

Any ideas or suggestions?

I've found lots of info about bending a sketch normal to the sketch plane; what I want to do is bend, distort, or non-uniformly transform the sketch or a set of surfaces/solids extruded from the sketch in the plane of the sketch.

S1mon

Use @Konst_Sh 's Flex FeatureScript:

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/0bb13c1b6ed6d4a6dd75cf99/w/b4493d47a45c27ce485c84b9/e/964f73eb0179aad8733b9f23

craig_ringer

Ah, thanks. That looks like what I'm after.

Thanks very much, I would not have found that.

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/18615/featurescript-flex-taper-twist-deform