Add bent tube to straight tube capabilities

Hi Joe-
    The team is trying to understand your application.  Would you have a cad file that shows what you're doing?  

             -The TubeShaper team

Sure!  Attached is a TubeShaper and IGES file of a bent tube that I measured with coped ends.  The cylinders on the ends of the bent tube were measured with tubes that were held in the copes (fishmouth cuts) on the ends of the tube to give me the orientation of the cuts.  I then export this geometry as a CAD file.  From there I open it in Solidworks and go through a lengthy process to determine angles and orientations of the coped end cylinders and then translate that to a straight tube state.  Also attached is an IGES file of the straightened version of the bent tube sample.  What I would like to see is an option in Tubeshaper that would straighten the tube while keeping the proper orientation of the coped end cylinders when going from the bent to straight tube state.  Since the orientation information is already in Tubeshaper, I think that this would possibly be something that could be done.  The straightened tube would then be exported (like the bent tube) as a CAD file.  This file would then be inputted directly into our tube laser software (our tube laser is a Trumpf 5000 tube laser) which would cut the coped ends into the straight tube.  The straight tube would then be put in our CNC tube bender which would then bend the tube using the exported bent tube file from Tubeshaper.  Hopefully this gives you an idea of our application.  Please let me know if there are any other questions.

Thank you for the response Glenn.

Joe Gehrke 

BENT_TO_STRAIGHT_TUBE_SAMPLE.tsp

BENT_TO_STRAIGHT_TUBE_SAMPLE.igs

STRAIGHTENED_TUBE.IGS