Creation Components

Corner Relief Options (CRO)#

Cuts a relief at every corner where bends meet. Each relief is sized from its bends, so it does not depend on the K-factor. Closed corners open along the Seams you draw, or along seams picked for you. Wire the output into the Corner Relief Options input of Non-Manifold To Sheet.

Inputs#

Outputs#

Corner relief#

Wire Corner Relief Options into Non-Manifold To Sheet and every corner of the surface model gets a relief before the bends are made. A corner is a point where two or more bends meet, or a bend and a seam. Leave the input empty and corners stay uncut.

• Each face loses a rectangle at the corner. It reaches past the bend zone by the Margin, so every bend ends square in flat material. The flat shape of a relief does not depend on the K-factor.
• A closed corner, where the faces go all the way round (a box corner, a lip folded round a wall corner), cannot be flattened without cutting it open somewhere. Draw that line as a Seam. It may run along an edge or through a face: the miter across a folded lip lies inside one merged face. The two sides end up Seam Gap apart once the part has thickness.
• Auto Seams, on by default, picks the seam for you. A joint between two flat faces at the corner comes first. Otherwise the seam goes where the flat, grown out from the root face, meets itself: on a box resting on its base, the corners between the walls. Draw a seam where you want another.
• Overlaps: a point on a face makes it lap over its seam instead of butting. The face runs on to the outside of the other face, and the other face is cut back to leave the seam gap.
• The relief's inside corners get the Corner Radius.

When a corner cannot be cut#

The conversion stops with a message naming every such corner:

• CORNER_SEAM_REQUIRED: a closed corner has no seam. The message lists its edges; draw one of them as a seam, or turn Auto Seams back on.
• CORNER_OVERLAP: the faces round the corner add up to more than 360°, so two of them would overlap in the flat. Split the part there. Exactly 360° (a flat corner) is refused too: wherever it is cut open, two faces meet edge to edge in the flat.
• CORNER_BEND_TOO_SHORT: the reliefs at both ends of a bend leave less than the margin of it.
• CORNER_FACE_TOO_SMALL: a face is too narrow for its relief.
• CORNER_UNSUPPORTED: a hem or a curved face at the corner, among others.

Tips#

• Leave Margin, Seam Gap and Corner Radius empty to size them from the thickness.
• Before 1.0, closed corners were opened with Unjoin Edges on Non-Manifold To Sheet. Draw those edges as Seams instead, or leave them to Auto Seams.

Edge Relief Options (ERO)#

Configures the relief slots cut at the ends of bend lines, which keep the material from tearing where a bend meets an edge. Wire the output into the Edge Relief Options input of Non-Manifold To Sheet. Leave a size empty to work it out from the thickness and bend geometry. A value you give is used as is, so 0 means zero. Reliefs need a bend radius above zero: use Shape None for sharp bends.

Inputs#

Shape (S) options:

• -1 = None
• 0 = Basic
• 1 = Filleted
• 2 = Circular

Outputs#

Relief shapes#

• None: no reliefs. Material can bunch up or tear where a bend ends at an edge. Needed for a bend radius of 0.
• Basic: a straight slot with a square end, Slot Width wide.
• Filleted: the same slot with a round end, which spreads stress at the tip.
• Circular: a slot that ends in a circle of Circle Radius, wider than the slot by default.

Tips#

• Leave every size empty to size the reliefs from the thickness and bend geometry. A value you enter is used as is, 0 included.
• Set sizes only to match a shop or tooling rule.

Manifold To Sheet (MTS)#

Turns a closed solid BREP that already looks like sheet metal into a structured Sheet object, classifying its faces into flanges, bends, hems, holes, and thickness faces. The input must be a watertight solid of consistent thickness with no branching walls or T-junctions. Use Non-Manifold To Sheet instead if you are starting from a surface without thickness.

Inputs#

Outputs#

Requirements#

• A closed, valid solid. An invalid Brep is repaired if possible, otherwise the component stops with an error.
• The same thickness everywhere.
• Plain sheet metal: no walls that branch or meet in a T.

Tips#

• Root Face sets which face stays put when the sheet unrolls. -1 works for most parts.
• Merge coplanar faces in Rhino before you start if you can. Merge Coplanar Faces does the same here, but adds time.

Non-Manifold Flange (NMF)#

Makes a flange for a surface BREP: a flat strip bent off one of its edges. Pick the edge by index and give a height and bend angle. Use the insets to keep the flange back from the edge ends, and the tapers to slope its ends. The output is the flange alone: join it with the input BREP before Non-Manifold To Sheet.

Inputs#

Outputs#

Non-Manifold Hem (NMH)#

Makes a hem for a surface BREP: an edge folded back on itself to stiffen or round it off. Pick the edge by index and set the fold height and the gap between the two layers. The output is the hem alone: join it with the input BREP before Non-Manifold To Sheet, and add the Hem Gap to its Hem Detection Widths.

Inputs#

Outputs#

Non-Manifold To Sheet (NMTS)#

Builds a Sheet from thin surface geometry, the most flexible way to create one. Sharp edges between surfaces become bends, the surfaces are offset by the material thickness to form a solid, and hems and reliefs are added. Start from joined surfaces with no thickness or fillets.

Inputs#

Outputs#

Steps#

1. Merges faces that lie in the same plane.
2. Cuts a relief at every corner where bends meet, and opens closed corners along their seams (only with Corner Relief Options wired in).
3. Cuts edge reliefs at the ends of bends.
4. Folds strips of a Hem Detection Width into hems.
5. Turns sharp edges into bends of the Bend Radius.
6. Offsets the surface by the Thickness to make a solid.
7. Analyzes the solid to build the Sheet.

Tips#

• Start from joined surfaces with no thickness and no fillets.
• A hem is a narrow face between two bends that turn the same way and add up to 180°. List its width in Hem Detection Widths to have it made as a hem.
• A closed corner, such as a box corner, needs a seam: draw it on Corner Relief Options, or leave Auto Seams on there.
• Flip Offset moves the thickness to the other side of the surface. Flip Bend Direction swaps which bends count as up and which as down.

Polyline To Sheet (PTS)#

Builds a Sheet from a 2D polyline profile: the polyline becomes the folded cross-section, each corner becomes a bend of the given radius, and the profile is extruded by the depth to give the part its length. A quick way to make brackets, channels, and box-like parts. The input must be an open polyline.

Inputs#

Offset Type (OT) options:

• 0 = Outside
• 1 = Centered
• 2 = Inside

Outputs#