I do CAD design work for a living, and have wondered the same thing -- how do I 'unwrap' a 3D curved set of panels? I use CATIA, which is more powerful than AutoCAD, and I haven't figured out a way to do it. There is a special sheet metal formin module that can be bought for CATIA, but my company doesn't have it. There are a few free plywood hull design software packages that you can download from the internet -- ask some of the guys here on this BBS where to find them.

Dean

> Does anyone know of a way to design the plywood panels from an AutoCad
> drawing (R14)? Is there some feature that will do this, or is there a
> program that will work with an AutoCad file?