Paperwork or sheet-cutting for 3D-molds ...

Hi all,

here i'll post my first 'training'-experiences with paperwork for molding ...

- first construct the object in Lightwave:



- then import and unfold in Pepakura-Designer [www.tamasoft.co.jp] :



- a bit optimizing:



- print'n'cut:



- and glue it together:



... then insert all tubes and special parts like screws or threaded rods and fill with polymer, beton, wax or other solidifying stuff.

I'll try this with milled aluminium-sheets when my 3D-mill works, so the paperwork is a test only -- but it's usefull enough, so think of molding with printed paper-objects in real or transfer the outlines on sheets with more mechanical stability ...

Viktor

Viktor,

What about using poster board--kinda like cardboard but without the corrugation layer--for doing a test run. You could actually fill that with wax or such.

Demented

Hi Demented,

... it's absolute free, what sheet-material you use - with printing on paper, glueing on a hard sheet and cutting the outlines with a saw you can have any rigidity you want ...

In Pepakura i can separate the sides in every fashion and flip or delete the suports as ia want, so it's an easy to use 'unfolder' for all kinds of 3D-objects.

For milling in aluminium or dibond (plastic-sheets covered with 0,5mm-aluminium) i have to convert into TIFF or DXF, then i can optimise in my CAD-program and mill directly with 45

Nice. I did something similar once, using acetate transparencies to make a dodecahedron mould for an acrylic paperweight.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2007 09:09AM by Steve DeGroof.

Hi Victor,
As always interesting stuff.

I don't rocgnise the word beton. Google tells me it is French for concrete. Is that the correct interpretation?

Chris

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Hmm, I downloaded Pepakura Designer and tried to load minimug.stl. It seems to have ignored the file.

Hi Steve,

... Pepakura reads Binary STL's, so it seems to ignore the ASCII-STL's ...

Here all input-formats:
Pepakura Designer File - *.PDO
Hexa Great - *.6KT / *.6KS
Wavefront - *.OBJ
Autocad - *.DXF
Metasequoia - *.MQO
3D Studio - *.3DS
Lightwave - *.LWO
STL Binary - *.STL
Google Earth - *.KMZ / *.KML

I use mostly the *.3DS or *.LWO-formats as direct output from my programs, but i have to convert the surfaces in triangle-meshes or it sometimes wouldn't work too ...

***

@Chris - yes, beton is the german word for concrete too ...

Viktor

Thanks, That's got it. I used ArtOfIllusion to import minimug.stl and export as a Wavefront obj file. Pepakura could read that and did a pretty decent job of unfolding it.

Just for fun, I did the same thing with the corner bracket (obviously something no sane person would ever do). Eventually, it came back with the following image and the warning "this make take a long time to fold".

Hi Steve,

... VVBG (Very-Very-Big-Grin )

It's obviously not so a good idea to unfold beveled or high resolution-parts with smoothed edges (but this can be optimized by switching the cutting-edges, flaps and interconnections too).

When you plan to start with sheet-work, then try to construct with basic objects and smooth the edges after solidifying - with filing or such ...

A good strategy for complexer geometries too is outputting as separated basic-parts and glue or screw the parts together for the complex object.

Viktor