Sphere UVW Map to DXF to Real world Application

I am working on a project to build a Deathstar firepit with a metal shop business within my enterprise. I have already been given the dimensions of the metal sphere that will be used (roughly 33" diameter). I have a couple of things I need to figure out:

  1. The first is the UVW map of the sphere being done in a way I can essentially print out the UVW map and cut it out to apply to the metal so it can be laser cut. I don’t know if the “standard” format of unwrapping the sphere is the best per se because the flat rectangle printout of the UVW map won’t apply smoothly to the metal.

I did a quick mock-up to test the UVW mapping to see how the design will look, I am already running into the problem of the material stretching

  1. The second challenge is exporting the UVM map as a DXF, I have found that you can go to UV > Export UV Layout and choose .svg as the format which I can then work with Adobe programs to convert to a DXF. My concern loopback to the concern of the UVW map needing to be done in a specific way to be applied to the metal sphere in a clean manner. I am open to any suggestions!

It is even complicated with paper, google for “Paper sphere template”.
With metal…
If possibe i would go to cut it out from a already produced metal sphere.

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Going from a rectangle to a sphere in paper, much less in steel is not the way to go.

You might find it better to use a flower petal unwrap; it works far better for spherical objects. Use this with an English Wheel, and you can shape the petals. You would need to Bake the texture to the new UV … You can either start with the Petals and go from the Equator to the Poles or leave the Poles and go to the Equator ( maybe better )…

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Welcome :tada:

a much more “simpler” way to texture this is by *not using the same UV map and also for something no UV’s at all…

So for the funnel simple rotate the sphere accordingly and us and equirectangular grid for the rest…

For the export… you might try something like the export paper addon ( inluded until blender 3.6 ?? ) and get somethign like this example for a sphere (depends on you seems and here only PDF… SVG is also possible…)

DS_seam2.pdf (45.8 KB)

( Yeah it’s the origianl grey image you also used from at least 7 years ago… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: … but separated… )

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Thank you, I have looked at paper sphere templates and the majority of them are the petal ones which seems like it would be the best to apply to the metal sphere (which has already been produced, I got to see it in the metal shop and helped with measuring it). I just am concerned that when I make the black-and-white cut-out design and apply it to the UV map there will be bits of the design that is lost in the spaces where the seams fan out.

This looks like the method I was thinking might work best, my biggest concern is the empty spaces where the petals fan out and the detail that will be lost between them. If I take this model with this UV map and put it in Subtance Painter/Designer will it avoid placing any of the design in the negative spaces?

Yes, you would be Baking the rectangular area to the new UV so there wouldn’t be anything lost between the petals…