Is there a way to unwrap/flatten a 3D design or sketch, to export it for laser cutting and bending? Let’s say you have designed a box open on top, and you want to flatten it and show bend lines, is there such an option ?
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I’ve been using Shapr3D for 3D printing for a long time but now I am doing laser and Plasma CNC. I find it easiest to draw things assembled which works well for 3D printing. What is a good workflow for flattening things out to laser cut it?
Here is an example. I am designing a corn hole board to cut out. I made it assembled and then make a copy and flatten all the parts that I will then project to SVG or DFX. Is there an easier way to do this? If I change the assembled board now I need to copy and move all the parts again. I assume there is a good way to do this with the 2D drawing features but have not figured out the workflow yet so thought I would ask since I know a lot of you have been doing CNC with Shapr3D for a long time.
Here’s a thought or two. First, I have little experience with 2D drawings and use of SVG or DXF files. I have used DXF files exported from Shapr3D for use with a Brother ScanNCut machine.
Anyway, you might consider creating a construction plane above the surfaces and Project sketches from those surfaces onto the plane. You can even have the plane below your 3D objects. That way you can select entire surfaces and still project to the plane below.
You can then isolate the sketch and export it as DXF or SVG. Other’s may offer a better solution.
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Thanks Mike. I always appreciate your insight. Once I flatten the drawing out I do essentially what you describe. But what I am trying to figure out is if there is a way to flatten all the parts before I do the projection (or maybe I misunderstood you?)
Essentially what I did in the image above was “unassemble” the parts and lay them flat. Once they are flat I project onto the plane since they are cut from one piece of wood but when assembled they are not in the correct orientation to project.
I haven’t found a way to do this other than to flatten out all parts, onto the Top view. I’ve been using Shapr3D to cut laser and cnc parts for quite a while now. McD
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any official update on this?
the only workaround i figured out is to
- check the angle of the two faces i’d like to flatten, deduct it from 180°
- use that number to rotate around the common edge as axis. this is usually not enough because the angle i see is a rounded number so the planes wouldn’t merge
- i project the almost flattened face to the other plane
my use case is making sewing patterns and sewing is somewhat forgiving so i don’t need to worry about a fraction of a mm. but it still feels wrong that it’s impossible to do this task right without distorting the original faces. also this process can be very slow with complex bodies.
