Surface Mapping Question

#1

I have been familiar with Blender3D for a while, and was considering using it for CAD CAM design, however, those plans fell through when I changed my major to art.

I was wondering if there were any plug-ins which could take a 3d models and break them down into an unfolded and connected two dimensional plane. I realize that this is the essence of image mapping or texture mapping. The idea would be to create such a texture map as one could print the given outline ( vector graphic or otherwise ) onto a piece of paper and then cut out and fold the paper back into a three dimensional model.

I’ve done this manually in AutoCAD as part of a curriculum; I thought that one of you might share some insight into reverse-engineering the output of texture map information or supply me with some useful links on the matter.

Or perhaps a plug-in already exists for this type of operation?

#2

As well as the usual UV unwrapping, something like this
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1619215
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=101194
http://www.blendernation.com/free-ebook-fundamentals-of-paper-model-design/
Not tried this but anyway http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/productinfo/product_index.html

#3

i haven’t used yet, but i think this is what you want:

for 2.4xx series:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=101194

for blender 2.5 series:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=186071

:slight_smile: Richard is faster than me!

#4

I find the learning curve on blender to be a bit high, but I’m willing to give it a try. Most of my models are symmetrical, so this helps.

I wasn’t aware that they had a UV unwrapping feature in the newer version, it’s been a while.It looks like the latest version doesn’t come with my copy of Linux, so I’ll have to comp one myself … there seem to be a few useful tools here.

Thank you very much, any other suggestions would also be useful.

#5

It must have been since blender has had UV unwrapping for many years

#6

I found Accutrans to be a worthwhile object converter; it gives more control over the conversion. If for some reason an object is hard to convert, Accutrans was able to solve it for me.

#7

Thank you all for your replies. I’ve just realized how out of touch I am with this program. there seem to be a few in-progress plugins for unwrapping the models specifically for the purposes of creating a paper model.

All of them require me to rebuild my current version ( linux mint comes with 2.49 ) and most of them require 2.5, etc.

I’ll have to put some of these projects on hold for a while.

#8

I can’t think of too much that you described that isn’t applicable to 2.49.

However, you probably do want to bump up to 2.5x as soon as possible, and it actually ought to be a very straightforward download. Just take the files and unpack them to a local directory and you should be off and running.

#9

If you are interested in converting your 3d textured models to paper ones, you should invest a small amount of money in Pepakura: http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/
It’s really worth it, and works like a charm - very easy to do even complex paper models built from several parts.

There is also a high-resolution version (textures up to 50.000 by 50.000 px) available that is a bit more expensive, but still very affordable.

The plugins I have tested so far for paper unwrapping are quite limited in comparison. With a pdf writer/printer installed (many free ones on the web) you can print to a pdf, and open it in any compatible illustration app (Illustrator, for example) for fine-tuning, removing unwanted visual fold lines, and so on.

#10

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