Flatten model pieces to be laser cut

[paul15 (Paul)]

Hi everyone,

I have pre modeled individual pieces for a model im working on and have been flattening them manually for laser cutting. As they are individual polysurfaces I haven’t been able to find a command to easily flatten all the pieces at once. I’m wondering if anyone knows of a solution to make my life a little easier.

Thanks in advance.Model pieces.3dm (8.3 MB)

[pascal (Pascal Golay)]

Hi Paul - here is a macro that will help get the objects flat onto the CPlane - but you’ll need to orient & place them where you want them by hand…

! _CPlane _Object _Pause _RemapCPlane _Pause _CPLane Top _Cplane _Undo

Select the face of the object (a face one of the solids) that you want to be on the Top cplane, then select all the objects that you want to remap - that would be the solid and whatever else you want to go with it - any curves or other parts that are in the same plane.

That said, you may just need 2d curves or surfaces and not the full solids, in which case there is a trickier and more automatic way to do it. Hold on a bit.

1. Isolate the 2d planes that define the shapes. i.e. ignore the thickness.
2. Trim out any of the windows and doors from these planes. Here are some of your objects treated this way - you’ll want to get them all:

3. NonManifoldMerge these into one object.

4. UnrollSrf > Explode = Yes:

-Pascal