It is a tedious and time-taking task to manually collect plate profiles from a big assembly. What is worse, it is very easy to make various mistakes, missing profiles, missing views, missing bend notes, missing bend line dimensions, wrong thickness, wrong materials, wrong quantities, etc. iChords - Profile Extractor is a powerful and efficient tool to help designers to automatically collect and categorize profiles, prepare DXF files and BOM for CNC cutting. It can save 70-90% of the time collecting profiles manually.

The general steps to use iChords - Profiles Extractor: 

1. open the assembly

2. use the command "Open Non-plate Parts" to filter out all the plates and format them

3. use the command "Open Unformatted Plates" to format the plates to make sure the stock numbers are linked to the thickness and the size can be shown in material lists

4. use the command "Open All Plates" to exclude non-plate parts by updating their stock numbers, converting them to normal 3D parts instead of sheet metal parts

5. use the command "Profiles Extractor" to collect and categorize all plates into one drawing. Plates with the same material and thickness will be placed in one sheet or consecutive sheets

There will be one view for a plain plate. There will be 2 views for a bent plate. One for the folded pattern, one for the flat pattern

overall dimensions will be added to all the views, and bend notes and bend line dimensions will be added to flat patterns of bend plates. hole notes will be added to tapped holes

6. use the command "Check Profiles" to report the missing/redundant plates/views, unformatted plates, wrong thicknesses, wrong quantities, etc. profiles with problems will be marked up and commented

7. clean up all the errors and mistakes according to the mark-ups

8. use the command "Unmark Profiles" to delete all the mark-ups

9. once the profiles drawing is checked and approved, use the command "Group Profiles" to create plain plate profiles drawing, bend plate profiles drawing and rolled plate profiles drawing

10. use the command "Profiles To DXF", "Profiles To SAT" or "Profiles To STP" to create individual files for all the plates. if the quantity of a view is wrong, it will not be converted and this error will be reported, use the command "View To DXF" to export a single view once the quantity is corrected

11. use the command "Profiles BOM" to create a BOM for all the plate profiles

The installer that ran when you downloaded this app/plug-in from Autodesk App Store will start installing the app/plug-in. OR, simply double-click the downloaded installer to install the app/plugin.

You can unload the plugin without uninstalling it by unchecking the "Loaded/Unloaded" check box associated with the plugin in the Autodesk® Inventor® Add-In Manager. You may have to restart Inventor to completely unload the application.

To uninstall this plug-in, exit the Autodesk product if you are currently running it, simply rerun the installer, and select the "Uninstall" button. OR, you can uninstall it from 'Control Panel/Programs and Features' (Windows 7/8.1/10/11), just as you would uninstall any other application from your system.

Dimensions could be misattached in some views.

Missing bend line locating dimensions can be a false alarm.

Some views cannot be moved during rearrangement.