Explode Sheet (ES)#
Breaks a sheet apart into its individual faces, grouped by type: flanges, bends, hems, the three hole types, and thickness faces. Each output is a list of BREP faces, empty if the sheet has none of that type.
| Name | Nick | Type | Access | Default | Description |
|---|
| Sheet | S | Sheet | item | | Sheet to explode. |
Outputs#
| Name | Nick | Type | Access | Default | Description |
|---|
| Flanges | F | Brep | list | | The flat bearing faces of the sheet. |
| Bends | B | Brep | list | | The curved faces where the sheet folds. |
| Hems | H | Brep | list | | The tight bends where an edge is folded back on itself. |
| I-Holes | IH | Brep | list | | Isolated holes: holes that sit fully inside one face (a flange or a bend). |
| NI-Holes | NIH | Brep | list | | Non-isolated holes: holes that run across more than one face, for example over a bend. |
| C-Holes | CSH | Brep | list | | Countersink holes. |
| Thickness Faces | TF | Brep | list | | The narrow side faces that give the sheet its thickness. |
Set Tolerances (STol)#
Sets the tolerances SheepMetal uses. Meant for headless Rhino (for example rhino.compute), where there are no document tolerances. Place at most one per document; it applies to every SheepMetal operation in that document. Without it, the Rhino document's tolerances are used, or 1° and 0.001 when there is no document.
| Name | Nick | Type | Access | Default | Description |
|---|
| Angle Tolerance | ATol | Number | item | 1 | Angle tolerance in degrees for geometric calculations. Defaults to 1°. |
| Absolute Tolerance | AT | Number | item | 0.001 | Absolute distance tolerance for geometric calculations, in document units. Defaults to 0.001. |
Outputs#
| Name | Nick | Type | Access | Default | Description |
|---|
| Status | S | Text | item | | The tolerances actually applied, so you can confirm what took effect. |
Notes#
- A second Set Tolerances in the same document is an error. Delete the extra one.
- Deleting the component, or closing its document, goes back to the document tolerances.
- The angle is in degrees. A value below 0.05° gives a warning, since it is probably a radians value.
Tips#
- Match the absolute tolerance to your units (mm: 0.001, inches: 0.0001).
- Tolerances decide which faces count as flat, which edges count as bends, and which faces merge. Too loose or too tight and parts can be classified wrongly.
Sheet Properties (SProp)#
Reads and sets the things a sheet cannot work out from its own shape: what it is made of, how many are needed, what it is called, its part number, the finish on each face, which way its grain runs, and how much room it needs when nested. Connect an input to set that value; leave it unconnected to keep whatever is already there. Everything comes out again on the right, so you can use this to look at a sheet as well as to change one. Thickness and bend radius are measured from the shape itself and cannot be set here. See Sheet Info for those.
| Name | Nick | Type | Access | Default | Description |
|---|
| Sheet | S | Sheet | item | | The sheet whose details you want to read or change. |
| Material | M | Text | item | | What the part is made of, for example "S235" or "AlMg3". Together with the thickness this decides which parts may share a stock sheet, so parts of different materials are never nested together. Spelling has to match the stock sheets and the other parts exactly, ignoring capitals and spaces at the ends: "Aluminium" and "alu_1.0" count as two different materials. Any text works, so a code from your own materials list is as good as a name. |
| Quantity | Q | Integer | item | | How many of this part the job needs. The nester makes this many copies, so the count stays with the part and you do not have to feed it a separate list. Quantities wired into Nest Parts win over this value. |
| Name | N | Text | item | | What to call this part, for example in the nester's Unplaced list. Part Number is used there when this is empty. |
| Part Number | PN | Text | item | | The part's shop or drawing number, for example "A-1042/B". Treated as text, so dashes, slashes and leading zeros all survive. |
| Finish Side 0 | F0 | Text | item | | Surface finish on the front of the part, for example "brushed" or "RAL 7016". Free text: it is carried through to the flat pattern and the shop paperwork, not interpreted. Front here means the side the sheet's Root Face is on, the face it was anchored on when it was built. Leave both finishes empty for a bare part. |
| Finish Side 1 | F1 | Text | item | | Surface finish on the back of the part: the other side from Finish Side 0. Fill in just one of the two for a part coated on one side only. If the two differ, which one ends up facing up in the flat pattern depends on the unroll, so read Finish Up and Finish Down on the Unroller rather than assuming. |
| Spacing | SP | Number | item | | How much room to leave around this part when nesting, in document units. Leave it empty to use the Gap on Nest Parts, or its automatic gap from the thickness. Set a larger value for a part that needs more clearance than its thickness suggests, such as one with long thin fingers that would distort from cutting heat. Between two parts with different spacing, the gap is the average of the two. |
| Grain | G | Vector | item | | Which way the material's grain or brushing runs, as a direction on the folded part, for example vertical on a facade panel. It is read on the flange it lies in, or lies closest to. Leave it empty to run the grain across the bend lines, which is how sheet is bent to avoid cracking, or along the long side of a part with no bends. |
Outputs#
| Name | Nick | Type | Access | Default | Description |
|---|
| Sheet | S | Sheet | item | | The same sheet, now carrying whatever you connected on the left. Pass this on rather than the original, or your changes go nowhere. |
| Material | M | Text | item | | What the part is made of. Empty when nothing was set. |
| Quantity | Q | Integer | item | | How many of this part the job needs. 0 when nothing was set, which the nester takes to mean one. |
| Name | N | Text | item | | What this part is called. Empty when nothing was set. |
| Part Number | PN | Text | item | | The part's shop or drawing number. Empty when nothing was set. |
| Finish Side 0 | F0 | Text | item | | Finish on the front of the part, the side its Root Face is on. Empty when nothing was set. |
| Finish Side 1 | F1 | Text | item | | Finish on the back of the part. Empty when nothing was set. |
| Spacing | SP | Number | item | | The room to leave around this part when nesting. Empty when nothing was set, meaning the nester's Gap is used. |
| Grain | G | Vector | item | | The declared grain direction. Empty when nothing was set, meaning it is worked out from the bends when the part is unrolled. |