I’m a web developer and I use Javascript to generate SVG paths that can be cut out and assembled into 3D objects. In particular, I create polyhedral lampshades and circular lightboxes using these techniques. I’m building an app to faciliate this. You can see a demo of the app here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J6QBTSfmpU.
I’m considering extracting all of the code that is not specific to my particular designs into a general-purpose plugin library that would enable others to develop and use adjustable SVG widgets for both industrial and graphic design. I’m only trained as a developer, not as an engineer so I don’t know if my peculiar process for designing objects would be useful to the broader industrial design community. I vaguely familiar with parametric design in CAD software but I’ve never seen a way to take a CAD design and deploy it as a tweakable web application. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel so to speak, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me if this venture would be a duplication of effort. I would intend to release this library as open source but I’m open to hearing if there are proprietary solutions that overlap with this.
Nice work and looks very responsive. I am aware of other various web-based shape design tools such as Boxes and templatemaker, but this is the first I have seen focused on the lamp shapes and having this degree of functionality. Looking forward to your developments. Please keep us in the loop.
@Rick wow that Boxes site is amazing, I started out writing python code for SVG about 12 years ago but then switched to JS because I wanted to make web apps, somehow this manages to achieve a web interface, I suspect it requires a backend server though. Maybe it could be ported since it’s open source. The templatemaker is also quite useful, thanks for the links! I will keep in touch.
Your program and video are pretty impressive. I created steel rule die patterns in CAD for many years. A good deal of time was spent creating folding cartons. The 3 CAD programs I primarily used contained macro programming languages for creating parametric designs. I also developed macro code that would allow the CAD files to be optimized for lasers, CNC steel rule die benders, routers, and water jet cutters.
Rick mentioned templatemaker. It’s decent for free, but coming from my background, most of the files need tweaking in order to become steel rule dies. That’s not necessarily an issue for 1 off laser cutting.
It was neat in your video how you have the setting for score lines either for laser cutting or steel rule die.
If you want help or suggestions, or someone to help test the code, let me know.
Industrial manufacturing is quite mysterious to me so it’s great to have your input. Hearing about how you had to tweak the designs gives me a bit of confidence that this might be useful to others. I still haven’t built in the feature to retract the score dieline but it’s on the list. I once asked for a quote from AccuCut and they said I couldn’t have the score touching the cut line which makes perfect sense.
I’m not quite sure how useful the score feature is considering Lightburn has a perforation setting. However, it’s not amenable to multi-interval scores (I just think a short then long perf looks nicer). It’s also not possible to adjust the ratios and the length separately.
I’m going to be putting together an alpha testers list so if you could PM me an email that would be much appreciated
