Creating cutting patterns for latex garments

Hi guys,

First of all I want to convey my level of understanding Rhino up to this date (so you dont expect too much from me)…
I studied the manual and got familiar with some basic commands and did some of the tutorials and just for fun tried to flatten a sphere but failed…

My (to be honest) unrealistic goals would be:

  1. create a simple model of a human head
  2. introduce some seamlines onto it which minimize the stress in the flattening process
  3. finally flatten the head and produce some cutting patterns to work with

Can you give me some advice how to proceed? So far I am not at all really able to put seam lines on a sphere and flatten it. Currently I am trying to draw a human head but since it should be anatomically correct it is not really looking promising.

This is one of the most difficult questions to answer:" I am a new Rhino user. How do I draw a human head?"

  1. Drawing human heads is pretty difficult with a pencil, never mind a NURBS modeler.
    You might start by searching online for a mesh model of a human head, and downloading it.There have been lots of human heads modeled with mesh modelers. Some are available for download for a price. Try http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-model/anatomy/head. Google “model a human head.” It might be worth your while to just get one of these. Modeling one takes a huge amount of time.There are many tutorials that should give you ideas. Rhino imports many mesh model formats.

  2. You can introduce seam lines by using the Project command. You can do this by projecting lines onto meshes.

  3. You can split the mesh with the SplitMeshWithCurve command. Flattening the mesh can be done with the Squish command.

All that said. I don’t expect you to be able to achieve very good results without a lot of expertise. You have chosen one of the most difficult tasks to accomplish using Rhino as your starting point.

Hi margaret,

Thanks for the advice. As Nietzsche said (sort of): “Choose the highest and noblest goals and perish while fulfilling them”.
But jokes aside, I already guessed that it is too much for starters.
But I already started looking for human head models and will also follow the link you provided.
Recently I bought a glass head for the tailor work. I can measure it and put some of the coordinates, for example starting at the neck and taking measurements in different planes until the top of the head into Rhino. Do you think I can interpolate a bunch of points to get a decent head out of it?

It just ain’t that easy. You might want to look into getting a digitizing arm. But I think if you are trying to design latex head coverings or something like that, laying the material over the head in the traditional way is going to be a whole lot less work. You could then photograph and trace your pieces using the PictureFrame command. Are you an experienced pattern draper?

I second Margaret on this.
I do this stuff all day and I’ve been doing it for over thirty years.
The task you have chosen is as difficult as any you could choose for a first try.

Since you have a glass head model, do the job the old fashioned way.
First cover the head in overlapping strips of masking tape. Then mark up where you think the seams should go. Using a cutter or scalpel slice it up and then peel the pieces off.

If you want to then get the flattened shapes into Rhino lay them out and photograph them, pull the image into Rhino using PictureFrame and trace.

Hope that helps, Steve

Thanks so far for the help! I will try the method you both suggested with the draping and then trace the photographed patterns in Rhino and report on the results.
To answer your question, I am not an experienced pattern draper.
So far I have painfully drawn patterns by hand for a dress, hot pants, tank tops etc…
I am using a book on tailoring women clothing for this and they came out quite Ok.
The most fun part, at least for me, is always the work with the material itself and watching how it all works out.

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I’m a huge believer in identifying the need for a proper tool for any specific task.

The nature of flora and fauna calls for organic modeling. Plain Rhino can do this to some extent and in small infrequent doses, but IMO it’s an inefficient exercise to get to that final result.

Can an OBJ/STL mesh head be purchased and imported? Yes. But what happens when specific features need to be changed or altered? (cheeks, nose, eyes) I’ll admit I’ve not explored Rhino’s mesh tools to tell if it’s possible to massage an imported mesh that way, but I can’t imagine it’s simple. Same can be asked about a polysurface head done purely in Rhino nurbs. Can changes be made easily to one region without worrying about its edge tearing away from an adjacent polysurface?

An organic modeling plug-in like Clayoo or TSplines allows immediate and direct manipulation of surfaces. The surface is continuous and not made up of a patchwork. Therefore, no tearing issues. Once the organic model is manipulated to satisfaction, a copy can be converted to nurbs polysurfaces as needed. All future changes in features are simply made in the organic model (direct manipulation) and one-click-converted to a watertight Rhino polysurface.

If creating organic objects will be a frequent requirement, I’d suggest investing the time to learn the organic modeling plug-in. If it’s a one-time requirement, acquire a mesh or look into a figure-creating software like Poser. You should probably also seek a program called “Marvelous Designer”

I tackled human head modeling within a year of picking up T-Splines. This model done using only two isometric photos of the subject.

Make human…custom heads also. and hey its free.
http://www.makehuman.org/

Hi again,
I tried the thing with the head and traced the peeled off stripes in Rhino. I tried to different cutting patterns but ended up with bad fitting masks. The problem is that you cant just lay out the parts which have an inherent curvature and expect them to go nicely together after reshaping them from 2D. I am probably doing it wrong, but anyway I am exhausted and frustrated. The “friendly” experts from the Latex community dont share their cutting patterns. Brave new world.

Same problem here… trying to make cutting patterns for rubber clothes, from measurements and pre-testing on a simulated body… because rubber is particularly expensive in Brazil, with our very steep taxes… thank you all so much for the whole thread… would love to retake it :slight_smile:

Two different tasks:

  1. Model the garmet in 3D including how it will be made, which each surface corresponding to one piece of material. Surface edges correspond to seams in the physical garmet.

  2. Create 2D flat patterns from the 3D model. Squish would be the Rhino command best suited to flattening the surfaces. For latex and other similar rubber materials the Stretch only or Stretch mostly options in Squish would probably give better results than the other default options. Improved results might be obtained with an optimized custom option. (A third party plug-in such as ExactFlat may give better results if it is within budget.)