I’ve been working on learning Processing, a language which is a bastardization of Java used for drawing pretty pictures (among other things). Most of its functions are based around drawing/graphics.
Processing project #1 was to generate templates to be cut on the laser cutter. Specifically paper boxes, because I needed something to package my Tinysaurs in. They end up looking like this:
You enter the depth, width, and height of the box, and Processing draws the pattern
Processing has a PDF library which I use to generate the template in PDF format, which Corel Draw is able to read. I’m looking into using Python instead of Processing, because it apparently has a nice DXF library. Although the fact that Adam scoffs at Processing makes me want to keep using it just to annoy him.
The Processing program is available in the NYC Resistor SVN repository. Which is public, hooray! The code is only vaguely commented, but it should be pretty clear what it’s doing. Maybe.
Of course you dont’ need a laser to cut these out, and xacto knife would work just fine. But… I have a laser so I use it.
If you don’t want to mess with Processing and just want to print box patterns, you can do that too. I’ve generated a bunch of sizes:
You may need to right-click and save the pdf to your hard drive to get it to load.
Thanks!
Me and my kids just built some of these cool boxes.
The 2x2x1.5 is buggy though.