The latest version of Unfolder for Blender is now available. This script unfolds meshes (unfolds, not unwraps).
(edited because urls changed)
http://celeriac.net/unfolder/
tutorial here
This version adds saving of nets in SVG+metadata format and lots of bugfixes.
Note: I’ve moved my site to http://celeriac.net/unfolder/
from http://home.referral.net.au/thesethings/polyhedra/
Whats the practicle use of this?
You could print the result and make a paper model .
sheet metal folding
carnevals mask and other models, you can print the texture for the final
assemblage
unstretched uv-coords
lightmapping architectural models
hmm, i think of more…
What about a lightmapped Brasilia paper model for Rangel?
Had a look at the movies, very very Cool!!!
Since this would be fairly usefull for making templates it would be cool to mave it export the SVG with Tabs- options as to tab style too.
Still… as it it would be a cool script to include with Blender.
Try get this in 2.38?
Thanks for the comments and suggestions.
Has anyone tried using the Unfolder and if so, did it work for you ? Any problems ?
There’s another use for this: the pleasure of seeing how things unfold.
Hi, I really like the idea of this but cant get the script working, am i making an obvious error somewhere, im quite tired.
When i run the script on an object i get the following error.
Any ideas whats up with it, maybe python2.4?
Unfolding selected object
diffuse: True depth: 0
unfolding with collision avoidance
Problem unfolding selected object:
‘module’ object has no attribute ‘shuffle’
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<string>”, line 1241, in buttonEvent
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<string>”, line 1270, in buttonEvent
File “C:\PROGRAM FILES\PYTHON2.4\LIB raceback.py”, line 212, in print_exc
print_exception(etype, value, tb, limit, file)
File “C:\PROGRAM FILES\PYTHON2.4\LIB raceback.py”, line 125, in print_excepti
on
print_tb(tb, limit, file)
File “C:\PROGRAM FILES\PYTHON2.4\LIB raceback.py”, line 68, in print_tb
linecache.checkcache(filename)
AttributeError: ‘module’ object has no attribute ‘checkcache’
Cheers,
Will
Hi Will,
It does seem to be a python2.4 related error, but I’m still on 2.3 so I haven’t tested it with 2.4 yet. I’ll upgrade and sort it out in a few days.
(a few days later)
It doesn’t work with Python 2.4. Please try to use 2.3 for now. Cheers.
this is great!
maybe in your next version you could take into account seams. that might let the user help the process tremendously…
i could not get the ani to work properly though. it made the empty and it rotated when i hit ctrl-a but the mesh did nothing? did i miss something?
Yes, a more interactive unfolder seams to be a good idea!
As for the animation, what does the console output say when you move the current frame in the IPO window ?
This is very useful indeed! Just two days ago, we did a huge papercraft model of a a rounded architectural form. I didn’t know that this script existed, a pity.
I first tried with LSCM unwrap, which obviously screws up the proportions. Then I tried cambo’s architectural unwrapper, which seemed good, but when trying to assemble the model, I noticed it’s not good for this use as well.
I then searched the net for “paper craft 3d” and came up with Pepakura. It’s a really nice shareware with good import capabilities. It also creates glue strips and it takes into account uv maps. Very nice.
But if I had known of this script:) I’ll give it a try. The animation is nice and SVG output rocks. Do you think it would be possible to save uv textures in the SVG? Or will that be very difficult?
Well, good work, I hope this script will be added to Blender. Very useful for architectural models and construction!
wavk, just out of curiousity what problems did you have the cambo’s script, i thought it kept the proportions nice… then you can just carefully move the faces around in uv editor.
i’m looking at Pepakura now… thanks!
Yeh I found Pepakura recently and it’s great - really fast and a nice interface.
I did once start trying to add uv textures (using PIL) but got sidetracked. There’s no reason why the textures couldn’t be exported in the SVG, but it would make it very heavy. (well, actually, having thought about it there is a way of doing quite nicely…hmmmm…)
Just digging around for some cool scripts, had a thought after I saw this one:
Ever thought about using the unfolding script as an auto seam script? Instead of unfolding the mesh it just marks seams where there would be a fold.
Just a thought, I’ve not learned python but thought it might be possible.
Okay, I’ll try to get seams involved in the next version.
For now I have to make sure it works with 2.4 Blender & 2.4 Python.
If you could do that it’d be really cool! Thanks for the effort!
That’d make getting a mesh’s UV unwraped flat a lot easier.
Now, that would be extra cool ! %| :o 
Great work, Celeriac!
Fantastic piece of work Mat, great to see how far along it’s came since BCAU04. I’ve tested it fairly extensively and have no problems with it at all. Great work.
timmeh