Forming Technologies Announces BlankWorks V4.3 for SolidWorks 2011

Powerful Flat Pattern Development Integrated into SolidWorks.

Burlington, ON, CANADA —Forming Technologies Inc. (FTI), a developer of software for the design, simulation, and costing of sheet metal components, announces the worldwide release of BlankWorks v4.3. BlankWorks provides SolidWorks® 2011 users with a fully integrated tool for developing optimal flat patterns from complex 3D designs.

BlankWorks has been used for flattening a wide variety of complex SolidWorks designs ranging from vinyl decals, canvas tents, upholstery, boat hulls, inflatable toys, aircraft and helicopter parts, insulation, thermoform packaging, electronic, and consumer product components. “For the past 10 years various industries which design complex 3D parts that are manufactured from 2D raw material have used BlankWorks for flat pattern development”, said Dan Marinac, director of business development at FTI. “However, the most common industry served is progressive die tooling design”.

“BlankWorks 4.3 gives SolidWorks 2011 users a competitive advantage during the die tryout stage of tooling development. Trial and error methods traditionally used to develop complex flanges and flat pattern shapes can take several days to a few weeks to develop. Using BlankWorks, users are able to develop flanges and blank shapes for their stampings in less than a minute. The accuracy of the developed flanges and blanks is unparalleled in the industry”, adds Marinac.

New features in BlankWorks 4.3 include flange/blank synchronization with SolidWorks geometry, blank edge smoothing to generate tangent continuous arc and line geometry to enhance the translation to the manufacturing process. In addition to flat pattern development and flange unfolding, BlankWorks also provides a contour plot indicating the thickening and thinning resulting from the forming process. It accounts for material stretch and deformation as well as bending and can flatten any SolidWorks geometry. This tool can also be used to assess the feasibility of a part for manufacturing.