Hello,
I couldn't resist to meet this challenge... And a pretty interesting one, I had to find new ways and tools. Here is what I did, for those interested...
- Create the flat cape shape from a scan, using LDraw Pattern Creator. During this, I set up triangulation to be able to fold cape along triangle edges (attached file cape.dat).
- Using MLCad I successively rotated and moved the whole cape shape in to align edges of folds with fixed black line (the rainbow color that allows seeing what you're doing was obtained with LDDP random color). Alignment is done visually, it doesn't have to be perfect, but the best the better. My fine grid was set to 0.1ldu/0.1°. Once aligned, I select the left side of the cape, and rotated it around fixed line by a 10° angle. The last two folds near collar were done in the other direction (-10°). After it's done, I rotated the whole shape again to align the middle with fixed line (halfcapeformed.dat).
- Mirrored the half to obtain the complete cape shape.
- As you can see, the approximative position of rotation axle compared to triangle edges causes a lot of small mismatches and gaps. A run through Unificator with 1 LDU unification threshold cures all these imperfections (attached capeformedout.dat)
- We now need to give some thickness... We leave LDraw world, and convert the file to .STL 3D format using LDView export function. Convert the .STL to .OBJ using MeshLab. Import the .OBJ in MeshMixer 7. The extrude tool (with offset=-0.003, Harden=0, density=0, direction=normal) gives proper result. Export to .STL, convert back to LDraw with Stl2dat... and voila! (attached 522a.dat).
I don't think I'll submit this part to parts tracker, as it is quite specialized... Now if others think differently, tell me!
I couldn't resist to meet this challenge... And a pretty interesting one, I had to find new ways and tools. Here is what I did, for those interested...
- Create the flat cape shape from a scan, using LDraw Pattern Creator. During this, I set up triangulation to be able to fold cape along triangle edges (attached file cape.dat).
- Using MLCad I successively rotated and moved the whole cape shape in to align edges of folds with fixed black line (the rainbow color that allows seeing what you're doing was obtained with LDDP random color). Alignment is done visually, it doesn't have to be perfect, but the best the better. My fine grid was set to 0.1ldu/0.1°. Once aligned, I select the left side of the cape, and rotated it around fixed line by a 10° angle. The last two folds near collar were done in the other direction (-10°). After it's done, I rotated the whole shape again to align the middle with fixed line (halfcapeformed.dat).
- Mirrored the half to obtain the complete cape shape.
- As you can see, the approximative position of rotation axle compared to triangle edges causes a lot of small mismatches and gaps. A run through Unificator with 1 LDU unification threshold cures all these imperfections (attached capeformedout.dat)
- We now need to give some thickness... We leave LDraw world, and convert the file to .STL 3D format using LDView export function. Convert the .STL to .OBJ using MeshLab. Import the .OBJ in MeshMixer 7. The extrude tool (with offset=-0.003, Harden=0, density=0, direction=normal) gives proper result. Export to .STL, convert back to LDraw with Stl2dat... and voila! (attached 522a.dat).
I don't think I'll submit this part to parts tracker, as it is quite specialized... Now if others think differently, tell me!