papercraft/README.md
Trammell Hudson 8f532ed2be features
2015-01-04 19:30:09 -05:00

31 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown

![Unfolded sphere](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7464/15880804609_88b0865685_z.jpg)
`unfold` reads a binary STL file on standard input and generates a
SVG that contains the triangles "folded flat" so that they can be
laser cut. It will output multiple groups in the SVG file that
will need to be re-arranged to fit on the laser cutter bed.
More info: https://trmm.net/Unfolding_STL
This is a work in progress -- it is not yet feature complete. Current features:
* Collision detection works to build a non-overlapping set of triangles.
* Coplanar triangles will be merged if possible.
* Mountain/valley folds are marked. Dashed line means valley fold.
* Starting face can be selected or randomly chosen; some produce better results than others.
* `stl-convert` script can convert OpenSCAD ASCII STL files into binary STL files for `unfold` to process.
Among the features that it could use:
* A better heuristic for finding the maximum non-overlaping set of triangles
(Currently breadth-first search is used, with a slight preference for coplanar
triangles)
* Tabs for securing parts together.
* Collapsing of very small or very thin triangles.