Unfolding software

[papfo]

I thought about moving the camera, but im having douts about it, maybe after its in a more completed state.
keeping the model position under the cursor while rotating the camera seems tricky....

Im struggling trying to update my threejs distro, and get my trackball controls working again....

When working on tabs i realized i need to fix the polygon import from objs.
I was trimming tabs based on the connection face / polygon. Doesn't work as well with just triangles. Didn't want tabs to overflow the end of a piece / bend.

My initial tab design i was just scaling the tab width based on its connection edge.
Im assuming people like set widths more than bigger edges having bigger tabs, and smaller edges having smaller tabs.

 

[papfo]

Progress update. Reworked the obj file importer to handle polygons, and not simplify to triangles...

Laser cutter is also coming together, hopefully will be able to burn this thing out in a month....

 

[papfo]

On to tab and layout development !

 

[Benton188]

How am I now just finding out about this? This is amazing!

 

[papfo]

Don't get too excited. Lots of bugs before I can package it up, and get alpha testers.
Probably will offer laser cut patterns until the software is in a more of a finished shape.
Still working on the enclosure for this cutter.

 

[papfo]

Worked on a selector box for edges. Not really happy with how usable it is. Took a bit longer to code up than I though it would be. Zoom stopped working for a bit as they are sharing the same mouse events....

Day jobs really get in the way of this stuff...

I think im going to limit the selector box to picking pieces for dragging around, and not have a mode switcher between layout vs tab editing.

Also all of my tabs are scaled based off the edge they are on rather than a fixed distance .... longer edges are getting bigger tabs.

Nothing too impressive.

 

[papfo]

Worked on the tabs with slots / inserts.
Here is a soccer ball with insert tabs.
Going to try and laser cut it out tomorrow.

 

[papfo]

Got the laser cutter working. Super happy about that. Tabs and slots seems to work. Although more adjustments need to be made. Currently it seems worse than gluing. I think I need to make the slot holes bigger and the tabs to have more of a lip to them.

 

[Dirtdives2424]

The problem w/ having tabs that are too big is when attaching them to other pieces that are really small....the tabs tend to go beyond those pieces......sometimes too much....is too much.

 

[papfo]

I run a clipping algorithm on both the current piece, and the connected face the tab would glue onto. so tab overlap is not an issue.
At least it doesnt seem to be an issue.

The paper folding book I was reading would actually put score lines on tabs that overflowed across faces. Not sure that is necessary yet.

I sort all the edges based on distance, Start with the smallest ones.
Then test each face to see which edge can have the largest tab and pick that one.

Makes tab creation take a long time though. seems like a min or two.
I need a progress bar so people don't think its stalled.
Ill worry about speeding it up later. (This is using the helmet model.) Smaller models go faster.

Def helps to have convex polygons, and not concave polygons for pieces.

 

[papfo]

Got my laser cutter to mostly work.
Played around with the tab slots. Larger holes helped. Was able to put together the soccer ball. Last piece wasn't able to get in. Though building outward should probably make it easier.

Added a measure tool, and allow myself to resize the model.
Im assuming you make the head holes about 6.5 inches / 165 mm wide no?

Next update will probably be a layout update.

 

[papfo]

Photos of the laser cutter, and new tabs / slots.