Add a flat pattern sheet per sheet metal body
Drew can automatically add a 1:1 flat pattern sheet for every sheet metal body.
You can also add a sheet for every (weldment) body and add a sheet for every sub-weldment.
1. A sheet for every sheet metal body
Just click the Add flat pattern sheets button in the Drew toolbar when you are creating a drawing:
Click it and Drew…
- Finds all sheet metal bodies within your part
- Adds an empty sheet, so without a sheet format
- Adds a flat pattern view at scale 1:1
2. Sheet names
Drew lets you choose the naming scheme for your flat pattern sheets. You can read more about it here.
3. Skip flat pattern sheets or export only flat pattern sheets
When you create Export Presets, you can choose how to process these flat pattern sheets:
- For DXFs: you can export only 1:1 flat pattern sheets.
- For 2D PDFs: you can skip 1:1 flat pattern sheets.
4. How Drew handles broken flat patterns
When you add a flat pattern view for a sheet metal body, SOLIDWORKS adds an unfolded derived configuration to the part.
When you delete this configuration or when you forget to save the part, the drawing view breaks because the configuration is missing. SOLIDWORKS then uses the default configuration for the view.
You will notice this problem when you open a drawing and this message shows up: “Configuration referred by view x could not be found.”
Drew detects broken flat pattern views.
When you add flat pattern sheets to an existing drawing and a broken flat pattern is found, Drew adds a sheet with a working flat pattern for that body.
You can then decide to delete the sheet with the broken view.