4

I have designed and 3D printed a stand for an RC boat. I need to line the surface of the stand with thin foam sheet to protect the bottom of the boat and prevent slippage.

How can I flatten the faces in red so that the surface area is accurately depicted (to make a template)? Scaling along Z doesn't work as it does not result in the actual surface area.

Thanks!

Boat stand

theDaviator
  • 145
  • 1
  • 5

1 Answers1

4

I think the shipped add-on Export Paper Model will do exactly what you want.

Robin Betts
  • 76,260
  • 8
  • 77
  • 190
  • 3
    Damn, too bad I didn't know about it on Friday when I designed my paper disco ball in Blender: https://i.imgur.com/G7j2j1y.png - my approach was UV unwrapping – Markus von Broady Jun 06 '21 at 20:54
  • @MarkusvonBroady Out of interest, how did that go, re, surface area? I've been trying to figure out how much the various unwrap methods conform. – Robin Betts Jun 06 '21 at 20:57
  • There were problems... :D Can't go much more complex than the UV sphere on the screenshot, at least not when using single A4. Closing the ball was hard ( https://imgur.com/SLzxURY ), since you can't hold the paper from the inside at the end. I think making holes + "outies" at least for the final connection of two main parts can make the assembly easier. Maximizing the surface for a given paper dimension requires strategical seams on the UV, something I didn't bother to do. I actually did that little project because I was aiming for bad results. :D https://imgur.com/5y1WBX5 – Markus von Broady Jun 06 '21 at 21:19
  • 1
    "Outies" can be generated by e.g. duplicating faces and cutting them with a knife, but I didn't bother and just cut them manually, though that made me forget to leave two outies on top and bottom (were supposed to only make a single cut in the circles instead of cutting out a V shaped piece) https://imgur.com/Li3fCgG – Markus von Broady Jun 06 '21 at 21:21
  • @MarkusvonBroady Heroic! :D – Robin Betts Jun 06 '21 at 21:32