Hello,
I am seeking advice on how to unroll a cylinder into a surface using grasshopper. This cylinder (shown in the photographs) is slightly complex and I would like the surface to contain the same detail. Would anyone be able to please suggests the best way to tackle this kind of task?
I have attached images below of the current grasshopper file and its output in rhino.
Any help would be incredibly appreciated.
Thank you in advance for your time and help!
Use a basic ‘regular’ cylinder to unroll then map your stuff from the 3D cylinder to the unrolled one. There are various ways - post a file.
Hi Rene, thank you for your reply.
I will try to map this to the unrolled one instead. The final goal is for the form to be used as panels.
I have attached a file below.
GrasshopperTowerFormToSurface.gh (22.0 KB)
Thanks!
Check if this helps - I get you’re panelizing but I’m not clear on what the type of unrolling needs to happen. In this case the SubD strips are kept as such (strips) but they’ve been mapped to the unrolled cylinder. However, you might be referring to orienting the panels to the ground, especially for non-planar panels which need to remain as such otherwise they get deformed.
GrasshopperTowerFormToSurface.gh (53.6 KB)
Wow thank you so much for your help René!
Is there anyway to keep surface as one plane rather than having them as individual strips?
What are you referring to? Unrolling the whole thing but kept joint together? Do panels need to be ‘flat’ or you just need to keep everything together?
Yes. If possible I would need to unroll the surface while keeping it joined together. The panels should not be flat but raised off the ‘ground’. Very similar to how you have broken the cylinder down but as one surface 
Again thank you for your help I really appreciate it.
got it - stepped away from the PC for a bit but here’s what you can do:
flatten your mesh list then join the meshes (before SubD), perform the unrolling of the joint mesh. Once unrolled, separate the joint mesh with ‘DisjointMesh’. You should get your list (strips) back, graft that and SubD the result.
Wow thank you for all your help!
