In my digital sculpture courses I teach students to make virtual forms in Rhino, and fabricate their designs with lasercutters, 3d printers, CNC routers, etc. We use Autodesk’s now outdated “Slicer App” to create the cut patterns for lasercut cardboard (see link below), using the “folded panels” and “stacked slices” methods most often. I’ll include some examples below to illustrate these two methods.
The Slicer App is no longer being maintained by Autodesk, so it’s only a matter of time before we’ll have to find an alternative. I imagine there are probably folks in the Rhino community who have figured out scripts for generating these kinds of lasercutter patterns directly in Rhino, so I wanted to reach out and ask if anyone can help point us in the right direction. The students I’m working with are totally new to CAD so the solution needs to be simple. I would be grateful for any help you all might be able to offer.
Hi, @JoeMeiser. I teach a similar Intro to Digital Fabrication class. After showing students basic laser cutter operations, I have them make a decorated 4" cube with tabs & slots that they design. Next, I give them a few PDFs related to package design, many of them by Paul Jackson, http://www.origami-artist.com (Example: https://www.amazon.com/Structural-Packaging-Design-Boxes-Forms/dp/1856697533). Showing students how to recreate/manipulate dielines in 2D is a great exercise for them. Their final laser cutting assignment is a laser cut portofolio case using any materials that can be cut on the laser cutter.
Hi Steve, Thanks for sending these resources. After looking at Paul Jackson’s website, I managed to find a PDF on the web with his origami techniques, and it is AMAZING. I’ve saved it to my computer for future reference. I agree that Pepakura is a great option for generating cut patterns from 3d forms, but I find it to be much more challenging to use than Slicer. Since many of the students I work with are complete beginners, I need to try to find a solution with a simpler workflow. About ten years ago I made a tutorial Google Slides doc for Pepakura which I’ll link below in case you’d like to check it out.
Thanks, @JoeMeiser. Appreciate the additional resources. If you dig around long enough, there’ll be a quite a few more package design PDFs online–many from Paul Jackson. Cheers!
