How to get bend lines on a DXF

How to get Bend lines on a DXF for a burn table

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This article will explain the process to get bend lines on a DXF file for your burn table. When you produce a NC file from Tekla the bend lines are included however when you use the DSTV2DXF convertor the bend lines are not brought across. Therefore we have come up with a different method to get around this for the time being. 

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Modeling the bent plate

The first thing to do is to make sure that you have modeled the bent plate properly so you can get bend lines in the first place. In order to get bend lines automatically you need to model your bent plates as a polybeam, see below for the process. 

When modeling with a polybeam (Modeling > Create Steel Part > Polybeam) you must at least pick three points, in the snapshot below you will see i am designating the poitns with numbers. In your model pick the points as i designate them to make the bent plate shape. Below is the picking process

1- First point picked
2- Second point picked
3- Third point picked
4- Middle mouse click to close

 

Now you have a bent plate modeled correctly, lets move to the drawing.  

Setting up your drawing 

Since we cannot use the convertor we must create a drawing and export it to DXF, so we will need to setup a few properties. 

Version 21.0 and newer
In Version 21.0 and newer you will have to perform an extra step to get the first part done. On each drawing there is a drawing frame which is not needed in the DXF file for the burn table, so we must turn it off. Version 21 and newer uses a new print dialog which does not contain an option for the drawing frames, so in order to turn it off you will first need to go to Tools > Options > Advanced Options > next go to the "Printing" section. Here find the variable called XS_USE_OLD_PLOT_DIALOG= and change this to TRUE and click Apply. You will be prompted to restart Tekla you do not have to do this just click ok. The step above is not needed in prior versions of Tekla, you still have to turn off the frame but you do not have to adjust the advanced option.  

 

Image

Next go to File > Print Drawing and the drawing list and print drawing dialog will open. In the Print Drawing dialog go to Frames and from there a new dialog will appear. Go ahead and uncheck the first frame and click apply then ok. 
 

The print frame will now be removed on all drawings, don't forget to turn this back on when you are done unless you are using your own Template frame. 


Setting up the drawing properties
Next proceed to Drawings and Reports > Drawing Settings > Drawing Layout. Here you will just create a layout called "Blank" as we need a blank layout that has no templates. 

 

Now go to Drawings and Reports > Drawing Settings > Single Part Drawings here follow the below snapshots for explanation of what options to change. 
 
 

  

That should do it for drawing settings, at this point apply everything and create a single part draiwng of the bent plate in your model. The end result should look like below

 

We are not done though, still one more manual step to finish this off and we can create the file. In order for the burn table to determine a differnce between the bend line and the part lines we must manually place a line in the place of the bend line and then turn the bend line off. See below
 

Now you are ready to create the DXF file, go ahead and save and close the drawing then open the drawing list. From the drawing list right click on the drawing you want to export and click export. A new dialog will appear, in this window just hit export and a file will be created in the plot files folder in the model folder. 

 

Thats it, everything to get you started should be completed. 

Please note that we cannot assume all machine requirements so some plasma tables may have to have some other adjustments to the files to get a better output. Feel free to comment on this page if you find other steps needed and we can update for those machines.