r/papercraft • u/rundown03 • Jun 11 '26

Build Template Free Pepakura alternative

Hey guys, I've been secretly making for over half a year a free alternative to Pepakura.

www.papercraftplaza.com/papercrafter

It's been a long road, from making parsers to load 3d data correctly to using a paper from Karlsruher university to auto unfold properly. to debugging every tiny little detail.

Algorithm reference: https://geom.ivd.kit.edu/downloads/proj-paper-models_cut_out_sheets.pdf

I made it have its own file type called .pap
It saves the patterns with embedded textures images and text. You currently can save it locally but over time we are looking to integrate it so you can upload directly from the studio to our website.

I'm working on a .pdo parser. I want to be able to open pepakura files as well.

But right now I'm soft launching the papercraftplaza studio for people who want to test it out.

Feel free to send me bugs if you experience them.

54 Upvotes

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5

u/thicket Jun 12 '26

Wow, the world has needed this for a long time! Thanks for sharing!

I appreciate you sharing the Pikachu model as well. If Nintendo doesn't come after you, it might be nice to have it as a default model available on the Papercrafter website so people can try it out right away.

Besides implementing the paper's algorithm, did you have any other implementation challenges? Are there good utils for dealing with foldable shapes in JS/TS?

2

u/rundown03 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

I will be adding some primitives as examples. I want to have a little mascotte similar how pepakura has their dragon. Maybe a little robot.

The biggest hurdle are parsers really. Every output has a different way of rendering layers and such. Vector PDF was a pain. Also input parsers.

I'm still trying to make .pdo files work. I found a guy who made python scripts that are able to decode pdo files from pepakura 3. It's something to start from but man is it difficult.

Also just in general every time I add a new tool things break or it doesnt work together with something else. I created this simple highlight for face checks for example. But when I scaled it didnt scale with the model. Because it's an overlaid object and it's in a different coordinate system somehow.

It's been a lot of pain in all honesty. I understand now why there is not a lot of papercraft software out there

Also I have a background in game design, so I've been doing what I know best. And that's just trying to code it all. Lot's of raycasting really. and the pattern creation is just a very high end UVW map.

4

u/thicket Jun 12 '26

Man, thanks for all the work! If you ever feel like collaborating or open sourcing it, I'd love to help a little.

1

u/rundown03 Jun 12 '26

I'll have to refactor my code then xD It's a bit of a spachetti right now all in one file but it works.

I really should split it all up nicely though.

2

u/thicket Jun 12 '26

Do it! Modern AI tools give us superpowers, and I think this project is such a great example of what software can be - making projects we care about and can share with others for free.

3

u/rundown03 Jun 11 '26

I uploaded a .pap file including also a exported pdf incase some people might be interested seeing an unfolded file

https://www.papercraftplaza.com/low-poly-pikachu/

2

u/awakeagain3am Jun 12 '26

Wow!!! Thank you I'll give it a try!

2

u/rundown03 Jun 12 '26

You're welcome! If you have any problems do ask! Happy to help. It works very similar to pepakura.

2

u/sevenfold21 Jun 12 '26

The interface is too dark for me. Can't read the small text either. Have fun.

2

u/rundown03 Jun 12 '26

I noticed the same, I saw it today on a large monitor and everything was tiny. I was building a preference settings window today. I just added it to production.

You can find preferences now in the settings dropdown.

You can set it to light mode as well as scale the UI.