Unfolding of Surfaces
Unfolding of Surfaces
(OP)
Dear all,
I need to create plots for "unfolded" 3dimensionally-curved surfaces. Does anyone know a way to tackle that with Rhino? Probably accept a certain "crinkle" tolerance and split surfaces manually if there is no other way? Who found a way to deal with such an issue? Any help is appreciated, thank you.
Markus
I need to create plots for "unfolded" 3dimensionally-curved surfaces. Does anyone know a way to tackle that with Rhino? Probably accept a certain "crinkle" tolerance and split surfaces manually if there is no other way? Who found a way to deal with such an issue? Any help is appreciated, thank you.
Markus





RE: Unfolding of Surfaces
As far as I can understand you are trying to construct complex surfaces out of cutout planes as I do with the sails for the sailing boats. I am extracting the isoparms of a designed sail along the stitch lines with "Extract Isoparms" command (some times I prefer to use "Contour" command for linear cut sails). Then I build up linear (flat) developable surfaces using this lines. Then with "unroll" command I can have templates for the sail cuts. I belive you can derivate the solutions for your specific geometrical objects in the same manner. For instance Iwould try to cut a sphere to some amout (amount depens to degree of final smoothness to achieve on sphere) of identical triangles to be able to have the templates for cutout planes. Also you can try "polygon mesh" with some more automatised way
RE: Unfolding of Surfaces
This method looks interesting, I'm seeing it as a quick way to mock up models with complex surfaces in them. Imagine slicing up your 3D model by extracting the isoparms and building mini surfaces as you described, then unrolling them and using them as templates for cutting sheet material to build the real model. Seems to me like a nice quick way to make a 3D mockup of you idea. This helps in getting the proportions of what you are building right. Thanks for the idea.
Cheers,
Tom
you could even do up some internal ribbing out of flat sheet to add some strength to the model. this gets better and better...thanks
RE: Unfolding of Surfaces
How can I get rid of the underlying NURBS-information and just create truly flat surfaces using the polygon mesh?
RE: Unfolding of Surfaces
Ive seen a plug in that does this very task. Theres a link to it on the Rhino site somewhere. Its to do with shipbuilding, I cant remember the name. It works a treat.
Rhino can only 'unroll developable surface' where it is a simple surface and for example a half ball surface cannot be unrolled. This plug in can handle surfaces that curve in two directions at once.
However, I dont think it unrolls multiple or 'stitched' surfaces that may comprise of a part. Im not sure, its been a while.
You can get a demo that lasts 30 days last time I looked.
See ya
Sirius.
RE: Unfolding of Surfaces
thank you for your note, I think the software is called "Expander", and might be what I am looking for...I'll try the 15 days demo and see...
BTW, any other hints are still appreciated.
Cheers