UV unwrap creating pattern pieces for real world garment construction

Artwork Blender Tests
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Hi All, I’ve been experimenting with using the UV editor and its unwrap functions to create real world garment patterns. I thought I should share that I am getting very accurate patterns using the UV editor in this more or less “off label” way.
The qualities that make the UV editor unwrap process great at what its suppose to do, also make it very good at producing accurate garment pattern pieces.
As with most things, there are ticks to it to make the unwrapped pieces turn out exactly right. Its taken me some months (ok, a couple of years:) of messing around to come up with some good rules of thumb to use in order to produce consistent results.
Is anyone else on this forum doing this too?

Here’s an outline of the workflow I have developed:

    • start with photogrammetric scan of person noting key measurements for reconstruction of point cloud and scaling of model in blender
    • I then Use Zephyr 3d software to convert point cloud to OBJ file.
    • import resulting OBJ file into blender.
    • set up proper metric measurements in blender scene and scale as needed
    • Copy, smooth and retopologize model using original scan to verify that not too much is added or subtracted from original shape during this process
    • Create a copy of the smoothed figure which will become the garment and add desired ease (wearing room) for desired fit.
      NOTE: In this process, I compute the extra ease to add at each area of the figure as an offset from the figure surface using circle geometry. I then apply a shrinkwrap using the offsets i’ve computed.
    • shape the garment on the surface of the eased figure created above.
      Note: No figure is symmetrical to begin with. So, in this step I also use a mirror modifier to bisect the garment with the original figure visible and I decide which half to keep and mirror to produce the pattern.
    • indicate seams
    • unwrap
    • Save layout as .svg file.
    • import pieces on to a Pattern Development software program for further refinement
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