Unfold Sketchup Plugin Free Download

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Tom Donahou

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Aug 4, 2024, 8:50:45 PM8/4/24

to ohguverre

sorryif this is in the wrong place. im looking for the best plugin to use with SketchUp Make that can unfold a 3d shapes onto a flat plane. So one could make paper reconstructions or wood cutouts. but mainly to make the shape easily printable on paper. there used to be a plugin for the old sketchup that worked very well and even had the option for tabs. thanks, any help would be appreciated

Well, assuming you are using Win7 and SU2015.

The instructions on the website are for the earlier versions of SU and the plugin folder has moved.

Assuming you have plugins already installed the plugin folder can now be found at

Hello Jim,

Q. I was wondering if there is a way to automate your Unfold Tool to step along an object and 'flatten' as it encounters an edge ?

I have used Ruby to generate a 3D shape of a curled ribbon that curves around and angles to the side (can email you the model noting it is still evolving) and I wish to use your Unfold Tool to make the final shape flat so I can mark out and cut some tin sheet to make the curled shape in real life.

We have a characteristic direction (along the length of the ribbon) to get to the next face (and edge) on which to unfold, however, there are lots-and-lots of edges as I have used lots of 'step' increments in my script, which makes it near impossible to do by hand.

Q. Pls advise your email address and I will pass the model.

Regards, AL.

Canberra, ACT

PS: Well done with your site :-)

Than you Sooooooo much!

I just found your unfold tool yesterday, and it has totally transformed my work process.

I create folding boats and furniture from plastic sheets, and in the past it was a very tedious process to do a 2d drawing in illustrator, print it out, fold it up and then go back to the drawing and tweak and repeat endlessly.

Now I just make my finished product in sketchup and unfold it and print it out!

I could only wish for a couple of features:

A way to easily refold the shapes, as sometimes unfolding reveals a shape that is impossible to fold out of a flat panel, so I have to tweak it and fold it up again to see how the tweaks changed things.

A way to compensate for thickness in the final product, as that affects the final dimensions.

I would be willing to pay for these features to be implemented(especially the first one) if it is not too expensive.

Please let me know if you are interested in a reply

Michael,

You're welcome. I'm glad you found it useful.

You can use Undo to refold at any time during the unfold process. It will remember the selected faces to a point, but it's not perfect.

As for the thickness, I will need to think on how to do it. Please contact me via email.

I just learned a new trick with the unfold tool. I often get into a situation where I have partially unfolded a model and I realize that I missed a panel or I did the unfolding in the wrong order so some parts of the model were left behind in the unfolding process.

The trick is that whatever panels you have selected will be moved to the angle of the next panel you select, so you can select any arbitrary panels (connected or not) and they will unfold to the next panel you touch.

That probably is totally incoherent to anybody who does not already know the trick... Maybe I will do a movie to illustrate it.

I installed the newest sketchup (Windows version), but the plugin gives me errors:

Fehler beim Laden der Datei jf_unfoldtool.rb

C:/Programme/Google/Google SketchUp 6/Plugins/jf_unfoldtool.rb:59: syntax error

Sketchup.active_model.start_operation "Unfold"

C:/Programme/Google/Google SketchUp 6/Plugins/jf_unfoldtool.rb:79: syntax error

end # if edge pickedactive_model.commit_operation

C:/Programme/Google/Google SketchUp 6/Plugins/jf_unfoldtool.rb:110: syntax error

#puts "activate called."

C:/Programme/Google/Google SketchUp 6/Plugins/jf_unfoldtool.rb:120: syntax error

end

C:/Programme/Google/Google SketchUp 6/Plugins/jf_unfoldtool.rb:157: syntax error

C:/Programme/Google/Google SketchUp 6/Plugins/jf_unfoldtool.rb:159: void value expression

next unless axis

C:/Programme/Google/Google SketchUp 6/Plugins/jf_unfoldtool.rb:160: syntax error

g = Sketchup.active_model.entities.add_group(f)

C:/Programme/Google/Google SketchUp 6/Plugins/jf_unfoldtool.rb:183: syntax error

def self.select_plane(plane)

Fantastically useful plugin - thankyou for this. Getting some really nice results in architectural model making.

One question: how to make unfolded objects flatten to the ground plane automatically? The most time-consuming step for me now is rotating resultant objects in 3D to form my cutting list.

And a wish-list item: a packing plugin, which would rotate and translate flat objects to fill a rectangle of given proportions with reasonable efficiency. To reduce material wastage... A tall order, I know!

Thanks again. David.

This is awesome, it will be very handy for designing projects made up of panels so can then cut them out on my home built CNC.

One question: Sometimes the model will fold onto itself instead of out flat. Is there any way around this?

cheers

Darrel

Jim, thanks for getting back to me! Not sure if I totally get the workaround - doesn't seem to be doing the trick - but maybe there's already another plugin out there to rotated objects in 3d to place on the X Y plane. Still, much appreciated.

On the packing idea, that would probably need a lot of thinking! I know people charge a pretty penny for those apps due to their usefulness in saving material in manufacture, but wonder how complex the maths behind it really is...

Thanks again.

FanTAStic tool. Saves me having to learn Rhino at the moment :) One question- I have the same problem, where some planes UNfold like they should, and other planes fold back on to the adjacent plane I chose- like folding the flaps of a cardboard box into the box instead of opening the box. How can I fix this or what to do about it?

Hi,new to sketchup, but love this plugin! I am designing some models to make into paper models. I have tried Waybe plugin, but find it unreliable! With yours I can unfold easily and add tabs wherever I want afterwards.

I've done this on my model. I've then rotated each part of the model and put them all flat next to each other. Any idea how I can then print them out on paper at the correct size? I can't see how to do it. I could also do with being able to save it as a flat file picture that I can colour in in an art package......any help gratefully received!!

Bruce: Printing...

The way I've been doing it is as follows. If anybody else can streamline this I'd be grateful!

Make sure that all your pieces are flat on the ground plane (you might need to rotate them), and at the same height (you might have to move them).

Rearrange to make sure they're fitting efficiently within a rectangular area.

Move them clear of the rest of the model (I usually unfold a copy of a model part, rather than the original).

Select the default 'top' view to give a bird's eye view looking straight down. ( Camera > Standard > Top )

Make sure that your camera is set to 'parallel projection', not perspective. ( Camera > Parallel Projection )

Now zoom in/out to make sure that you can only see the unfolded pieces. (Otherwise Sketchup may try to print other parts of your model, which will result in it spreading the printout across multiple pages - bad as it will probably cut some of your pieces in half.)

Check that your printed drawing will be scaled correctly. File > Document Setup, and uncheck 'Fit View to Page', and put 1mm In Drawing, 1mm In Model (or whatever your units are).

These settings assume that you're drawing your object in actual size. If you want to print a scaled version, eg. 1:50, the 'In Model' measurement should be accordingly larger.

Also check that the settings under File > Print Setup are appropriate for your printer. Access to an A3 or larger printer can be invaluable...

Erm, File > Print... (It can be this easy, or you might need to experiment further with the positioning of the objects, of the camera, and perhaps the orientation of the page in Page Setup.)

Make sure that Sketchup is displaying edges, or that your shapes have some colour to make them easy to cut out.

Anyone/Bruce - I just can't make this work on my mac - how did you load it?

I put it in the right folder but it doesn't show up in the extensions tab of prefs dialog. I tried changing the extension to .plugin like the other plugins, but no change. Help!

Jimma - Locate Sketchup in apps folder, right click on it and select 'show package contents'. Click contents and put this plugin file into the plugins folder.

Hi there Jim

I;ve been using your unfold tool for a while now to make paper models of buildings. Great work! your tool simplifies the unfold.

Recently I've been working on a way to unfold a model to uv map it and at the same time retain the base model. I've written a tutorial expalining how I went about it at

I'm no Ruby programmer, but I thought you might have suggestions on how to automate the process. One of the Sketchucation members created a small plugin to automate the Make Group/Make Component part of it. This is rather cool as it sped up the process.

Cheers

Bob

an auto unfolder on marked object with adding the glueing "flaps" would be nice, also so it can autosize it to an A4 paper so it wont be cut on the print. naturally it will fill the paper as mush as it can.

Do that sound creatable?

well, I add it to my wishlist. :)

Sounds like the above post is after Pepakura... It's a good program, but it doesn't always seem to work as intended.

Incidentally, for Mac users, the plugin has to go in the Application Support folder of sketchup. i.e. (Home) > Library > Application Support > Google Sketchup 6 > Sketchup > Plugins >