2D rollout of cylinder

[neondeon298]

Ok... so I have a cylinder surface that I want to be able to "cut one side and lay it out flat". Imagine take a beer can, cut down one side, remove the top and bottom circles and flatten the OD so that I have a flat rectangle.

 

Attached is an image.

Is there a command to do extract the surface and put it onto one plane so that I can print out that elliptical shape?

 

[neondeon298]

 

THATS THE GOAL!!!

[Cad64]

I don't know of any way to do this in Autocad using standard commands. Do you have access to Inventor?

[neondeon298]

Negative on inventor. Ended up doing it this way...

[BIGAL]

Reminds me of when I was 16 doing Technical Drafting on a Board at school and we had to do all sorts of shapes.

 

Did you google pretty sure there is some 3rd party add ons for this type of thing.

[neondeon298]

The only thing google helped with was one potential file that my work internet security did not agree with.

Luckily all my frustration will be worth it as this is for a friend to weld up a 55gallon drum smoker!

[bjenk8100]

that is a very cool thing. sometimes i have to use autocad 3d but rule of thumb in my company is use autocad 2d and inventor, solidworks or revit for 3d. most people excel with those principles. i will try that out when eagles beat redskins.

[scj]

Have a look at http://www.ant-ares.de

Good luck and regards

Jochen

[steven-g]

Pepakura, it's a paid program but the free version will let you print (just not save files). It should work with dxf but I don't know if it will work with your geometry but could be worth looking at