Sheetmetal > Designing in Sheetmetal Design > Converting to a Sheet Metal Part > To Convert a Solid Part into a Sheet Metal Part
  
To Convert a Solid Part into a Sheet Metal Part
1. Open a solid part.
2. Click Model > Operations > Convert to Sheetmetal. The First Wall tab opens.
3. For thin protrusions use the Driving Surface. tool
4. For block-like geometry use the Shell tool.
5. Click . The part is converted to a sheet metal part and it opens in the Sheetmetal Design application.
6. Create additional features as needed.
Using the Driving Surface Tool
From Creo Parametric 5.0 when you convert a solid part to a sheet metal part you can include and exclude surfaces to obtain a a constant wall thickness, recreate rounds and chamfers, and use additional options.
1. Click Driving Surface. The Driving Surface tab opens.
2. Set a value for the wall thickness.
3. Click References. The References tab opens.
a. Select a surface to use as the driving surface for the sheet metal part. The selected surface shows in the Driving surface collector.
b. To include surfaces that are treated as face surfaces in the sheet metal part, click the Include surfaces collector and select one or more surfaces.
c. To exclude surfaces so that they are not treated as face surfaces in the sheet metal part, click the Exclude surfaces collector and select one or more surfaces.
4. Click Options to set the following options:
◦ Adjacent Rounds & Chamfers treatment—Controls the inclusion of rounds and chamfers in the sheet metal part.
▪ Recreate—Removes rounds and chamfers and recreates them after the part is converted to a sheet metal part.
▪ Remove—Removes the rounded geometry. The resulting geometry is similar to the geometry before the round operation.
▪ Ignore—Ignores the rounded geometry. The resulting geometry is without the rounded geometry.
 
* The following rounds and chamfers are supported for these options:
• Rounds—Round design objects and automatically detected rounds even when there is no existing design object.
• Chamfers—Chamfer design objects.
◦ Keeps not classified surfaces as a separate quilt—Keeps surfaces that are not classified as the driving surface, additional surfaces, and excluded surfaces as separate quilts.
◦ Set driving surface opposite selected surface—Sets the surface opposite the selected driving surface as the driving surface.
5. Click to flip the direction of thickness.
Using the Shell Tool
1. Click Shell. The Shell tab opens.
2. Set a value for the wall thickness.
3. Click References. The References tab opens.
4. Select one or more surfaces to remove from the part.