How to "unroll" or "flatten" non-planar surface


I’m having difficulty unrolling this surface. The goal is to flatten this shape so that it can be built physically out of fabric. I tried to cut it into quadrants (see image) and then doing a flattensrf, that wasn’t working. I also did unrollsrf, but the command line kept saying 'unrolling doubly curved srfs will produce inaccurate results.

Any thoughts?

Unrollsrf.3dm (284.5 KB)

Hello - when you flatten surfaces that have compound curvature like this, the result cannot be accurately calculated wiithout some information about the characteristics of the material. UnrollSrf is for developable surfaces only i.e. surfaces which could be made from a material that bends but does not stretch or compress, like paper. So, in Rhino, Squish is the best bet for this inside Rhino but you’ll still need some idea how the thing is going to be cut up and assembled so that you can Squish a reasonable section at a time.

-Pascal

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Hello
I have a very good idea but this time the answer could come from Daniel Piker. He has made in kangaroo this work on developability of meshes.
So @DanielPiker can you help on this subject I have seen on tweeter

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facepalm I forgot about squish! That resolved it. Thanks!!

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Thanks for this thread. Im going to try squish. Ive been modelling hat shapes in rhino, that i then unroll surface and silhouette for the pattern to make in real life. Works a treat for non planar shapes, but need to try and work out how to solve more organic fluid shapes. I have a lot of experience making patterns to sculpt physical 3d shapes by pattern cutting thin foam, then gluing the seams. So im hoping that squish will be a good solution.