Plushify for 3D plans?

[Heinrich Dorfmann]

Someone told me me about plushify today,seems it’s used for making soft toys,but when I googled it I got this ,which seems to indicate that if there is already a 3D plan in existence you can “ flatten it “ using plushify or am I talking about complete nonsense as usual..
If I’m not talking garbage
1.Would the 3d plan have to be of an RPCplane ,not a ”real” one, ie one that is proven to fly at that scale
2. Do such 3d plans already exist ,can you use ones created in fusion 360 etc..
3.Could you scale the 3d version to your desired size,perhaps afterwards rescaling wings / flying surfaces to be of the right flyable size ?
4.Before flattening would you be able to adjust internal structure eg formers/spars so everything fits.
Put all these thoughts in DeepSeek and got a lukewarm response indicating it’s not the holy grail I thought it might be or is there another one out there we / I’m missing?
Thanks for any ( positive)suggestions..!

 

[AIRFORGE]

What did their website say?

 

[Heinrich Dorfmann]

Not much ,have emailed them.DeepSeek said restrictions included less than 100 k faces / single mesh?

 

[telnar1236]

Looks like it could provide a good starting point for making skins but not much more and you'd need to do some processing after. The two main issues I see are a lack of any internal structure and how it takes very small faces and still tries to represent them. Here is an input and an output

 

[Heinrich Dorfmann]

Yes ,that’s what I thought,no internal structure,when they get back to me will ask!
But what if you gave it eg a fusion 360 3D drawing that someone has painstakingly put together,would it flatten that?I have seen Mr Mans thread on Onshapeand that looks quite easy to use so maybe all this is unnecessary
Also the thing I'm particularly interested in is resizing one of these RC 3 D drawings so that the internal structure all “ fits” with the restriction of the foam board staying the same thickness all the time ,I know this probaby won’t do that ( and fusion 360 probably can ).
Might create a thread on that if it doesn’t already exist!

 

[telnar1236]

Also looks like you need a file that went directly from CAD to .obj for it to work well, otherwise it follows the stl mesh and you get weird points

 

[telnar1236]

So, to try and answer your list of questions:

1. Not necessarily, in fact I doubt you'll find any RC plane specific models that plushify can use since almost anyone designing them will have gone through the rest of the process and released them as foam board or balsa plans or 3D printable STLs. That said, most straight winged designs can be scaled down directly will fly ok as RC, so it's really only jets that will cause problems aerodynamically
2. Not really as far as I know. Most people who make aerodynamically correct models of planes will have gone the rest of the way to make them fly and released them in a bunch of smaller parts, whether for foam board, balsa, or 3d printing. A lot of models of planes you can find that are not intended to fly lack an airfoil on the wing or have something somewhat wildly off.
3. You can scale 3D meshes pretty easily in a number of different softwares including Fusion 360. It looks like plushify has a built in scaling function too
4. Only in CAD, plushies tend to lack structural integrity so you just get the skin from plushify. You might be able to trick it into giving you spars using a similar trick to how 3D printed planes are designed for vase mode, but then the skin will be worse

There isn't really a holy grail as far as I know. I've seen some people have good success using paper model making tools meant to do something similar and let you unfold 3D geometry. In my opinion, though, the easiest option is to use CAD. I believe @Mr Man has a tutorial on how to model planes for foamboard in Onshape and I've also seen people have good success with Sketchup, Inkscape, and Fusion 360 (which I use)

 

[Mr Man]

I believe @Mr Man has a tutorial on how to model planes for foamboard in Onshape

Yep, they're right here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRD5eX1Z9m-CApHYDDkGxENpGL7Jqjswo

 

[Heinrich Dorfmann]

Thanks for all your input telnar ,it’s just me -I’m always on the lookout for something that takes the sweat out of this whole design process.
Ideally what I’d like to do is be able to take the 3D plan from someones hard work eg on this me 109 ,

SFRC Mighty Mini BF109

It looks so good! Great job! Thank you!

forum.flitetest.com

Then resize so that the internal structure all “ fits” with the restriction of the foam board staying the same thickness all the time ,then maybe adjust control surfaces ,wing sizes so they will fly at the new scale and then flatten either using Onshape or maybe Plushify.
I’m sure there will be an option in eg Onshape that allows you to click on all the “thickness “ parts you don’t want resizing .
(will message Mr Man !)- and yet upon resizing everything fits!
Surely this will be quicker than the traditional cad method?
I’d quite happily spend 10 minutes making sure I’d identified the bits I didn’t want resizing and somehow “telling “eg Oneshape that after resizing I want everything fitting as smooth as the proverbial bug in a rug,than doing the traditional cad method which is time consuming.Am I making sense or asking the impossible?
Ah Mr Man has joined the conversation,thanks and welcome,I’d appreciate your thoughts on my ramblings if you don’t mind @Mr Man

 

[Mr Man]

Thanks for all your input telnar ,it’s just me -I’m always on the lookout for something that takes the sweat out of this whole design process.
Ideally what I’d like to do is be able to take the 3D plan from someones hard work eg on this me 109 ,

SFRC Mighty Mini BF109

It looks so good! Great job! Thank you!

forum.flitetest.com

Then resize so that the internal structure all “ fits” with the restriction of the foam board staying the same thickness all the time ,then maybe adjust control surfaces ,wing sizes so they will fly at the new scale and then flatten either using Onshape or maybe Plushify.
I’m sure there will be an option in eg Onshape that allows you to click on all the “thickness “ parts you don’t want resizing .
(will message Mr Man !)- and yet upon resizing everything fits!
Surely this will be quicker than the traditional cad method?
I’d quite happily spend 10 minutes making sure I’d identified the bits I didn’t want resizing and somehow “telling “eg Oneshape that after resizing I want everything fitting as smooth as the proverbial bug in a rug,than doing the traditional cad method which is time consuming.Am I making sense or asking the impossible?
Ah Mr Man has joined the conversation,thanks and welcome,I’d appreciate your thoughts on my ramblings if you don’t mind @Mr Man

Onshape has a thicken tool 👍

 

[Heinrich Dorfmann]

Ok,thanks ,@Mr Man I’ve been watching your videos they’re great,wish they’d been around when I first start CAD on Fusion 360 many years ago!
If you don’t mind I may DM you if I get stuck with Onshape.
Just got a reply from Plushify if anyone is interested
The main functionality of Plushify is to take a 3D model, cut it apart at the seams, and flatten each individual piece. You can then assign colors to the individual pieces, add details, set the overall size of the object, and finally print a cutting layout for your project.

Most people use Plushify for stuffed animals, but some users also use it for other purposes, like fursuits or papercraft. While I am not aware of any users using it specifically for RC planes, there is nothing in the software preventing it from being used for this. The most important part is making sure that the 3D model is suitable for it. E.g. the individual parts of the plane should not clip into each other. This is a common problem when trying to use models from video games or other digital media. On a screen, two objects clipping into each other might just look weird, but in real life, it's physically impossible so the pattern would be unusable.

You can check out the Userguide to see whether Plushify could be a good tool for your project: https://plushify.net/guide I especially recommend going over the section for preparing the .obj file (https://plushify.net/guide/preparation). Additionally, if you want to learn more about how Plushify unwraps and flattens a 3D model, you can check out this blog post: https://plushify.net/blog/3-sewing-patterns-from-3d-models

 

[Mr Man]

Ok,thanks ,@Mr Man I’ve been watching your videos they’re great,wish they’d been around when I first start CAD on Fusion 360 many years ago!
If you don’t mind I may DM you if I get stuck with Onshape.

I don’t mind 👍