With the Bend Sheet feature, you can add a new sheet to your SOLIDWORKS drawing which have all the bends marked in the model's flat view with the dimensions.
The following drawing sheet features and operations apply to the sheets generated by the Bend Sheet feature:
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NOTE: Detached drawings are currently not supported by the CUSTOMTOOLS Bend Sheet feature. |
The flat view in a drawing's cutting sheet created by the Bend Sheet, references to the SMFlatPattern model configuration which is created automatically to the referenced model if it does not already exist. For that reason the referenced model should be saved before running the Bend Sheet command against the drawing.
Because of the new configurations' creation to the referenced models, the models processed by the Bend Sheet operation are opened during the process and they become unsaved. The unsaved models are left open after the operation to indicate the user to save the unsaved changes in them. If the referenced models are already open during the Bend Sheet process, they are just left open to indicate the user to save the unsaved changes. In these cases the unsaved changes are the new configurations created by CUSTOMTOOLS.
The following pictures describe how the Bend Sheet works in practise:
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This picture represent a measuring sheet of the drawing created from a bended sheet metal plate which have holes on the bended sides. | This picture is taken from Bend Sheet generated by the CUSTOMTOOLS Bend Sheet feature. |
While performing the Bend Sheet command against a drawing that already has a sheet created by the Bend Sheet feature, you get prompted whether you want to append or overwrite the existing sheet.
Append | Appends the existing sheet by adding another instance of the part into the existing sheet created by the Bend Sheet. |
Overwrite | Creates a new sheet to be used with the bend machine by replacing the existing sheet created by the new one created by the Bend Sheet feature. |
Cancel | Cancels the Bend Sheet action. The bend sheet is not created or the existing DXF sheet is not removed on the operation cancellation. |
Drawing sheet generated by CUSTOMTOOLS Bend Sheet feature is not used to be modified by the user. A sheet that was active while the Bend Sheet operation was started, is left as the active sheet once the Bend Sheet operation is finished.
Multibody parts ARE NOT supported by the CUSTOMTOOLS Bend Sheet feature. To make the dxf files with the bend views from your multibody parts, please use the CUSTOMTOOLS Print/Convert feature in the File Conversion mode.