Friday 5 June 2015

FreeCAD: Sheet Metal Update 2

Some screenshots of the current state of the workbench:

My goal sheet metal part and what can be currently done with the workbench:


It took me less than 5 minutes to draw it (I cheated a bit and did not put any real measurements). It sums up the current capabilities.

The object in the tree view:


You can also see the two orange icons, the only ones by now: "base fold" and "fold on edge".

The properties of the main feature, the fold:


It seems not too different from Update 1, but there has been a lot of work under the hood. Topological naming is a headache (every time a shape is modified, freecad sorts its edges, faces and vertexes randomly), and for the unfold, currently I have two approaches, the one that is currently working, produces this:


The other method, when finished, will allow to unfold partially and set different bend radius and k factors for each fold.

Thought priority is to finish Fold part class and unfold methods, to take a rest from it I code other tools, for example, hem along edges:


Or tear drop fold (a simplified fold object):


Slowly, this is starting to feel mature enough to use it in for real world. Once I solve some key problems, I will launch the crowdfunding campaing.

Any comment is greatly appreciated!