Apparatus and method for managing and distributing design and manufacturing information throughout a sheet metal production facility

摘要

A system and method are provided for developing a bend model of a part to be produced at an intelligent production facility. In accordance with an aspect of the disclosed system and method, faces of the part are detected based on initial part information, and bendlines of the part are identified based on the detected faces of the part. Further, additional part information is generated by performing a predetermined operation (e.g., a folding operation or an unfolding operation) on the detected faces of the part. The disclosed system and method also include other capabilities, such as the capability to perform clean-up operations on initial, 2-D part information and to selectively eliminate part thickness representations in order to facilitate the preparation of a 3-D representation of the part from the modified 2-D part information.