![]() There will be a suppressed feature in the design tree, if you un-suppress it, you can see the flat pattern instantly, I think there was also a button that does that. Once that is done, you can also cut/extrude where necessary. Wasn't sheet metal part of even the standard version of Solidworks? If the model was created in Solidworks, then you simply convert it to sheet metal inside SW, enter material thickness, bend radius and pay attention to K factor, that will affect the layout dimensions, really easy to use, (from memory) click convert to sheet metal, then pick a surface on the part you want to be central-ish in the layout and just go around and click on corners to create bends. Have you ever run through the tutorials on the sheet metal module? Without seeing your part (and the feature tree) I can't offer much more help. It really depends upon how it was created and converting solid to sheet metal will often not work as intended. My point is that just because the feature tree show the part as being sheet metal doesn't mean it will have the flat pattern you need. Finally creating it as a loft generated the correct flat pattern. Most attempts ended with a flat pattern that was simply a rectangle, this was clearly not correct. Last night I wanted to create a sheet metal cone that had a 16" OD on one end, a 12" OD on the other. The program needs something fixed or it has no idea what the reference "zero" is. Solid models converted to sheet metal need a fixed edge/surface as a reference for all other features to "unbend" around, sort of like it's an axis for rotation/unbending. The sheet metal module operates a bit differently than solid modeling. Very often a part created in solid modeling may convert to sheet metal but not be able to generate a flat pattern. Expand the feature (+) right click on the mouse on the "Flat Pattern" (try one or the other) will give you the option to un-suppress it and lay it flat. The "Flat Pattern" is the bottom feature in the model tree and it's suppressed. With sheet metal parts there's a "Flat Pattern" feature that's created automatically but it greatly depends upon how the part was created. I think the latest version I've used is 2019.
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