System and method for drawing and manufacturing bent pipes

Abstract

A novel method of using a bent-tube object in a drawing file includes entering a custom bent-tube object in a drawing file, and using the bent tube object to generate bender driver data. In a particular method, the step of entering the custom bent-tube object in the drawing file includes entering a multi-segmented line in the drawing file, and generating the custom bent-tube object based at least in part on the lengths of and angles between the segments of the multi-segmented line. In a more particular method, the step of entering the custom bent-tube object further includes selecting a tube type (e.g., a particular diameter, material, etc.), and the step of generating the custom bent-tube object further includes retrieving bent-tube object data from an object data file based at least in part on the tube type. Optionally, the bent-tube object data retrieval is further based on a particular type of tube bending machine. Novel systems for using a bent-tube object in a drawing file are also described. One system includes an object manager responsive to input from a user and operative to generate a bent-tube object, and a drawing engine responsive to the object manager and operative to enter the bent-tube object in a drawing file. In a particular embodiment, the object manager is further responsive to a user selected tube type in generating the bent-tube object. The object manager retrieves bent-tube object data based at least in part on the selected tube type. The selected tube type optionally depends on a desired diameter of the tube. An extraction module is operative to generate/extract bender driver data from the custom bent-tube object. Optionally, a data converter, responsive to indicia of a particular bender type, converts bender driver data for a first type of bender to bender driver data for a second type of bender.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.