a question/ challenge for programmers and or 3D artists
I have a problem, and I wonder if anyone proficient in either programming or 3D art would be able to either give me advice on what to do, or actually write a piece of software to do what I'm looking to do.
Here's the deal: I need to find (or commission) software that will allow a fully 3D framework to be rendered in two dimensional form so as to be output through a plotter. This may sound a little confusing, so I'll give you an example of what I need to accomplish with the program:
Say you want to build a cardboard box, four sided. No front or back. You could draw this in 3D, and then have the program "flatten" the box so that the image has been laid out as four rectangles. Such that when you printed it out you could fold along the lines and have your box. Make sense so far?
Now the 1st tricky part: The back of the box is to be cut away at a 45 degree angle, so that when assembled, it will sit at 45 degrees on a flat surface. For a box, you could easily figure the angles manually, but I want it to be automatic, so that you can have your shape intersect a z plane (at some angle other than 90), and everything on one side of the z plane is omitted from the model. Then the remaining model is laid flat and plotted.
The 2nd tricky part: I want to use complex shapes. In the diagram below, I just used a cylinder as an example. But if I were to make a three dimensional "G" (hollow front and back), and want to have the backside at a 22 degree slant, and wanted to be able to "flatten" the model so as to be able to print it, cut along the lines, then fold it up and have a paper version of the 3D model that would sit at 22 degrees when on a flat surface...that's the real challenge here.
Let me give you the diagram, and continue in a minute:
It's just a crude scribble, but you get the idea. The first shape is the simple box, and to the right is what it would look like if printed out "ready to assemble". The 2nd shape has the 45 degree cut across the back, where it intersected our magical z plane that cuts off everything on one side. Again, to the right would be the flat cut out shape of the remaining (solid lines) box.
The third is a cylinder, and it's shape if cut along a line and laid out flat.
I need something that will allow me to create 3D shapes, cut them at an angle in front and/ or back, and then print out the remaining shape in a flat continuous pattern that can be folded back into it's 3D shape.
CAD software (the ones I'm aware of) does not seem to allow this. I don't know if 3D rendering software will allow a model to be flattened, cardboard style. I don't know much about this, but I would imagine that someone could either point me in the right direction, or program a commissioned (ie; $$) bit of software (maybe based on some existing open source CAD or 3D software?) that could do such a thing.
What do you say?
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Originally Posted by XJR15
