Handmade Sink - Unfold 3D to 2D Flat Pattern

[ceylankral1905]

I manufacture handmade stainless steel sinks with R20 inside corner radius.

In production, we cut a 2D flat pattern where the corner notches are not straight cuts — they have a slight curve (using R20 punch die). When folded on a press brake, these curved edges meet and form the R20 vertical inside corners.

I need to unfold a 3D sink model into a 2D flat pattern that includes these curved corner notches (see attached image for the flat pattern shape).

Is there a plugin or method in SketchUp to unfold sheet metal with radiused inside corners?

Thanks

[ateliernab]

hi, yes and no.

you’ll have to manually cut the sides and bottom separately, then using a free plugin named Unwrap and flatten faces will give you the relevant face flat on the ground :

this is when I try to unwrap it all at once.

however, there will be no deformation : as you can see the result is different from what you’re showing, because it’s dealing with each face as a non deformable element.

you’ll have to move around / deform some faces manually.

[ceylankral1905]

@ateliernab

hi, yes and no.

you’ll have to manually cut the sides and bottom separately, then using a free plugin named Unwrap and flatten faces will give you the relevant face flat on the ground :

this is when I try to unwrap it all at once.

however, there will be no deformation : as you can see the result is different from what you’re showing, because it’s dealing with each face as a non deformable element.

you’ll have to move around / deform some faces manually.

Unfortunately this doesn’t quite meet my needs — I need the flat pattern to come out as a single connected piece (cross/plus shape) like in my reference image, with the curved corner notches included. The plugin seems to separate each face individually.

I’ll keep looking for a solution that can generate proper sheet metal unfolds. Thanks again for your help!

[mihai.s]

@ceylankral1905

I’ll keep looking for a solution that can generate proper sheet metal unfolds.

Then the UV Layout can be extported as SVG file (2D vector).

[ceylankral1905]

This is awesome guide. Thank you so much

[Box]

The nature of the beast that is Sketchup has issues that won’t really work for you because it is made of flat faces.
So even when laid out properly it doesn’t give you a perfect template because the metal you are using can bend but sketchup faces can’t.
As you see here the curved section needs to split for the flat faces to work.

[mihai.s]

@ceylankral1905

This is awesome guide.

You’re welcome!

Considering that in reality that metal plate will stretch or compress in the areas where it bends, common 3D graphics programs, such as 3dsmax, Blender, SketchUp, etc… can generate an approximate unfolded surface, but then you have to test what that surface really means.

What I showed you with native Blender tools, it is possible to have even better results if you use it for UV Layout together with one of the best programs for this - RizomUV.