papercraft/README.md

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.