Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts
Using the Wrap feature
The Wrap feature enables you to wrap 2D sketches around cylindrical and conical faces. However,
trying to wrap around 360 degrees can cause some difficulties. Although all the available informa-
tion on the Wrap feature says that you can wrap onto a conical surface, it fails to mention that the
point of the cone must be cut off in order for it to work.
The Wrap feature works by flattening the face, relating the sketch to the flat pattern of the face,
and then mapping the face boundaries and sketch back onto the 3D face. The reason why it is
limited to cylindrical and conical faces is that these types of geometry are developable. This
means that the faces can be mapped to the flat pattern through some relatively simple tech-
niques that happen behind the scenes. Developable geometry can be flattened without stretch-
ing. You will see in a later chapter that sheet metal functions are limited in the same way and for
the same reasons.SolidWorks does not wrap onto other types of surfaces, such as spherical, toroidal, or general
NURBS surfaces, because you cannot flatten these shapes without distorting or stretching the mate-
rial. There is software that can flatten these shapes, but it is typically done for sheet-metal deep
drawing applications, which highly deform the metal. Figure 7.57 shows the Wrap
PropertyManager interface.The Wrap feature has three main options:l (^) Emboss
Deboss ...........................................................................................................
l (^) Scribe
FIGURE 7.57
The Wrap PropertyManager interface