Automated unfold system for pipeline on developable rotary assembly

A method to unfold the developable rotary assembly and to automatic drawing of engineering drafting based on intermediate model was proposed to maintain the consistency between 3D model and 2D drafting. The concept of intermediate model was introduced to unfold 3D developable rotary assembly into planar state for facility projecting. General unfolding method for pipeline systems was presented. Two coordinate transformation algorithms from 3D model space to 3D intermediate model for cylindrical and conical assembly were exploited. Discrete pipeline was used to conduct coordinate transformation, and pipeline reconstruction method was employed to unfold pipelines. A set of customized drafting templates based on enterprise standard was set up, and the 2D semi-automatic drawing of engineering drafting was achieved with geometric location and attributes in intermediate model. The developed system was applied in aerospace enterprise. The results revealed the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method.