Any idea why the included file fails?

[traverseda]

To be clear I definitely didn't expect this to work. I had some more reasonable samples that did work. It just produces 3 triangles. It seems like the file should work in principle, it's consistently 3mm thick (I am using --thickness 3) but still fails.

testFox.zip

[tjltjl]

Quoting the documentation:

Shallow joints (between 135 and 180 degrees) are currently handled badly, with finger lengths becoming extreme. The system should understand when it does not make sense to make the fingers longer.

If you make the fox really large compared to the thickness might (or might not) do the trick.

This is most likely the issue - nice fox model, btw.

I'm very much wanting to make this type of model work but it will take a little bit of surgery to make the fingers shorter in the case of shallow joints (first to understand at what points a joint is shallow and then to modify its definition).

[tjltjl]

Duplicate of #3

[traverseda]

Awesome, thanks for letting me know. I've got a flow in blender for taking "low poly" models designed for 3D printing and converting them into a format that more or less works with this, depending on the exact model. The original fox was a model I downloaded from here I think.

The trick is, in blender, to use the "solidify" modifier, and make sure you check the "even thickness" box.

I'll be watching #3 closely, there are also some low-poly vases I think would look very interesting laser cut.

[tjltjl]

Would you have a moment to write up that process as a new .md docs file with a couple of pictures? "Generating models suitable for plycutter". I use fusion 360 and should probably write that approach up too...

Also, pictures of any finished models for inclusion into the gallery-to-be would be very welcome!

[traverseda]

Haven't finished any models yet as all the ones I've generated via blender have been from complicated 3D-printable stuff, I've had a fair bit of luck working with openscad but how to do this is openscad is pretty obvious. Just make sure your geometry is all the right thickness.

I'll do a write up of converting a sample from here and hopefully it can be used as the basis for that process once #3 is sorted out.

Perhaps the low-poly stanford bunny available here? I'd like to use something that has a high-likelihood of working out of the box, presuming #3 isn't getting in the way.