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Expanded metal in solidworks?

i_r_machinist

Titanium
Joined
Apr 12, 2007
Location
Dublin Texas
I've ran through youtube and know that I can change the appearance of a surface, but is there a way to generate expanded metal without linear cut patterns? I was playing with weldments and was wondering if it had some sort of expanded metal generator but couldn't find anything.
Thanks in advance
i_r_
 
Flattened expanded metal will be a lot easier than non-flattened. Array a diamond shape over a sheet and use the array to punch holes. Obviously creates a whole lot more geometry than applying a surface shader/finish with alpha/transparency.
 
From the standpoint of systems resources (especially in the context of larger assemblies), I would generally suggest changing the appearance rather than modeling the 3D geometry. There may be an expanded metal appearance option in Solidworks I'm not already aware of, but you can always grab an image from the internet and apply it to a face. If you're using it for engineering purposes, don't forget to create an expanded metal material to get the correct density.
 
The sheetmetal area lets you fold and unfold etc to give shapes both in folded state and unfolded state, just learning it now.
Have not seen any expanded metal function i suspect you would need to investigate if you can model a small part then do a array to get more of it without having to draw it multiple times.
 
If I try to punch holes with a linear pattern it does bad things to my computer, as stated. Got to playing with appearances and chain link was the only one I could generate, but the background is black. I did figure out how to change the mesh size. Watched the YT videos where they pull up diamond plate, but I can't generate the image, just have to figure out what I'm doing wrong.
Thanks for the help!
i_r_
 

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Yea, you'll want to use an appearance rather than actual features. If you get the appropriate texture map, you can get pretty realistic renderings.

I run an overclocked I9 processor at 5.1GHz with 128GB of ram and can confidently state that features like what you're showing has a noticeable impact to performance in SolidWorks.
 








 
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