[HN Gopher] Unfolder for Mac - A 3D model unfolding tool for cre...
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Unfolder for Mac - A 3D model unfolding tool for creating
papercraft
Author : codazoda
Score : 107 points
Date : 2026-04-09 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.unfolder.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.unfolder.app)
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| Mac only. Is there any reason this couldn't be a web app? And
| seems pretty restrictive to just have one platform, a desktop
| Mac.
| dwb wrote:
| If I built a Mac app, the reason would be that I use a Mac, as
| do a lot of other people, and native apps are a lot more
| pleasant than non-native apps. I don't really understand why
| it's "restrictive"? There is no restriction happening.
| joemi wrote:
| The same could be said about pretty much _any_ software.
| hbn wrote:
| The author had to decide between making something excellent for
| some people or mediocre for everyone, and chose the former
| aziaziazi wrote:
| You may use Pepakura if you're running windows. Not sure if a
| web or linux alternative exist.
| dnpls wrote:
| So, like Pepakura?
| https://pepakura.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura_designer/
| moralestapia wrote:
| No!
|
| This one is called Unfolder, it's a different app, made by a
| different person, etc...
|
| More than one app per category can exist, and that's good!
| detritus wrote:
| So weird for me to see this popup now on HN as I happened to
| dig through an old downloads folder a few minutes ago and saw
| an install file for Pepakura (13/11/2014), and wondered where
| that sort of thing had ended up... .
| aziaziazi wrote:
| But for Mac! I fonder the difference of the free and paid
| version through.
| fabianmg wrote:
| You can put "for Mac" in a turd and it'll reach front page in
| a day.
| allenu wrote:
| I like the clean design of the landing page. I downloaded it and
| started the app and it needs an OBJ file to even do anything, so
| I wasn't able to play with it at all.
|
| It would be cool if it included sample OBJ files to entice me to
| find my own later. Otherwise I feel like I just hit a wall
| immediately in the app will probably not try it again.
| 1-more wrote:
| The way I tested was search Thingiverse for "angular" and
| download an STL, then convert it online to an OBJ on the first
| search result for "stl to obj"
|
| Specifically I tried this rook from this chess set.
| https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5994219/files
|
| Sadly, some of the crenelations on top of it are just cubes
| with 2 sides missing that would be impossible to attach to the
| folded up rook. I imagine there is a ton of loss between a file
| for a 3D printer, a random convert to Obj with no settings, and
| this net maker, so I'm not unsympathetic to the problem. It's
| just that this is a printout that would not be foldable into
| something useful.
| constantlm wrote:
| This is great - reminds me of the golden age of cool little MacOS
| apps
| Aurornis wrote:
| This is really cool.
|
| As someone who is not into papercraft I'm intrigued, but it feels
| like it's not for me. If the app was advertised as having a small
| selection of simple models to get started with, people in my
| position might be more interested in trying it out.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Oooo this might be useful for doing geometry unwrapping for laser
| cutting
| matzie wrote:
| Unfolder? But I barely even know her! Jk, awesome project tho!
| Makes me wanna make cool packaging for products
| ge96 wrote:
| I remember something like this was huge for rc planes 10-20 years
| ago as you could then make a plane out of thin bendable foam
|
| You'd make a 3D model from 3-views then use something like this
| to unfold it
| shahar2k wrote:
| You're thinking of the same app i used to use! I think it was a
| Japanese app called Papakura? It's what helped me learn 3d
| modeling back in the day
| istjohn wrote:
| From another comment:
| https://pepakura.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura_designer/
| hybirdss wrote:
| What a fantastic idea. Developers who enable others to create art
| are artists in their own right!
| amelius wrote:
| Good artists enable others, great artists enable only Apple
| users.
| davebranton wrote:
| I wrote something like this for windows 20 years ago, a friend of
| mine used it to make some cutout models for an art exhibition.
|
| It's an interesting problem to try to solve. Anything but the
| simplest model requires more than one cutout, which you then (in
| my app at least) have to position by hand onto sheets of paper
| for printing. Performing the unfold to minimise the number of
| separate sections was not something I even attempted.
| plumeria wrote:
| Beautiful landing page. I wonder if it uses the OCCT unfolding
| algorithms or something similar under the hood?
| shooshx wrote:
| Why is this not a web page?
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(page generated 2026-04-09 23:00 UTC)