expanding a sphere

how to expand a sphere in sheet metal
I use inventor ver 2021

2 Answers

Hello,
it would be nice to have some image of the spherical surface you want to develop (flatten). Precisely, in theory, the sphere is not flattenable (which you can see on a map of the planet earth, which does not develop as a single surface).
However, it is possible to make some approximations based on triangular meshes on the sphere that can be developed (flattened on a circle, for example).
In the figures I show the case solved in SolidWorks because I don't have Inventor installed, but I assume it has some command similar to "flatten surface" available in SolidWorks.
Best regards

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