Functional Design Using Design Accelerators - Autodesk Inventor 2010: No Experience Required - page 358

FIGURE 7.51 The colored faces provide a preview of what needs to be removed.
When you made the housing, you created a sketch and used that sketch to make
a cut across the bend. This is a signifi cantly more complex problem, so you have
to use a different technique to fi nd the shape of what needed to be cut. Using tools
like this is much more cost effective than doing several physical prototypes, and
it's ultimately more accurate. If you were to discover that the belt you selected was
in limited supply, and you had to switch to another version, you could relocate
the motor and recalculate all this in a minute or two.
Next, you need to make the cut in the metal. To do this, you'll fl atten the bend
and make a cut.
The Unfold and Refold Tools
Inventor has the ability to preview the fl at pattern in a sketch (as you did in
Chapter 2, “Building the Foundation of the Design”) to establish how that fea-
ture will appear in the fl at pattern. Sometimes you need to be able to see a por-
tion of the part in an unfolded state to add geometry.
A great example is adding a stiffening feature across a bend. You unfold the
bend, add the stiffener to the fl attened portion, and refold the model, including
bending the stiffener.