Three-dimensional plotting

[Vince0115]

I have a three dimensional drawing of a part we are manufacturing. Imagine it as a rain gutter on the front of a house, but bent into a donut shape to go around the face of a clock with the open (top) side facing out, away from the numbers. (Yes, I know the water will fall out at the bottom of the clock!).

Further, Imagine that the clock face is wrapped around a pillar of round cross-section, so that the face is closest to the street at 12 and 6 and furthest from the street at 3 and 9. We need to manufacture the gutter section from 10 to noon -- it curves in 2 axes: around the Y and around the Z. The cross-section (the 'ends' of the gutter) remains constant.

Now the sticky part: I need to produce full-size, wrap-around patterns for the fellows on the shop manufacturing floor. Straight-on views will not produce the extra length required as the part bends around. It would probably require about 4 plots: one for each of the four long outside faces.

Is there any way of plotting this out to be true size as it wraps around? If someone will remind this dullard how, I can post a dxf or dwg.

thanks in advance,
Vince

[rkmcswain]

Is something like this overkill?

http://www.zcorp.com/products/printersdetail.asp?ID=1

[Spacepig]

How do you intend to manufacture this item? In separate short straight peices that are (welded?) together or are you bending a sheet first into a donut as described and then bending that around your round former? The reason I ask is that if you'r doing the former, the I have a program that might be useful to you to create the individual pieces...let me know.

Spacepig

[Vince0115]

R.K. and Spacepig,

The Z-Printer is not feasible, because we don't bend, weld, or form. We carve from solid blocks of limestone, using everything from hammer and chisel to 5-axis CNC milling machines.

This part (and its mirror image part) are pieces of a door frame (minus the center keystone). The door is located in a "turret" projecting from the front of the residence.

We need to produce a paper or plastic pattern which is true-to-size when bent around the stone. Projecting the first curve onto a barrel shape for the second does make the correct part, but how to plot the extended length so created onto the plastic material used by the fellows on the manufacturing shop floor as patterns is the problem.

So far, our solution has been to manufacture the pieces over-long, and cut them down to size on the job site as they are fitted together: a waste of time and stone. :(

Vince