I design in a program called IronCad. Website is www.ironcad.com It is used by engineers and product designers. It works great for designing paper models. You can create custom materials libraries and just drag and drop those materials into the design scene. It is an expensive program $$$ however a qualified student or teacher can purchase it for about $125.00. The student version is not time or function limited however you don't get any personal customer support with it. There is a free 30 day trial download that is unlimited in what you can do with it. You can save files, export them as various file types. etc.
The secret weapon this program has unlike any other is called the "Triball". It is a feature that has an axis in it which can be used to reposition objects and features or even moving faces on objects allowing for easy rotation and pattern duplication, mirroring etc. Another advantage is you begin the design in auto contraint mode meaning you don't have to do all that aggravating task of adding 3 constraints to every part or or add constraints to dimension. You can add additional ones if you wish but I have never found any need for that. This alone makes it 4 times faster to model in than most 3D CAD programs.
I have trained and worked in a number of the professional 3D CAD programs, CATIA, Solid Works, Form Z, Inventor, Pro E, etc, but this program is actually fast, fun and intuitive as well as being a powerful modeler with a built in rendering engine. It does have texture mapping ability although I rarely use that function. The company has posted lots of tutorials on youtube as have other users of the program but you won't find any that are specific to paper modeling. There are some video tutorials in languages other than English.
The easy way to begin a paper model is to build a solid core and then wrap your virtual paper material over it. You begin by dragging some of the default shapes into the 3D scene and then modifying the size and shape of them by changing dimensions, dropping holes on them or adding other shapes to them. There will be one of the faces of the shape that can be activated to create a 2D sketch on it. I always rotate that face so that it becomes the surface of the paper. Then after I drop holes for windows and such on that part I turn on the 2D sketch mode and project all the lines of the holes and go back and remove the holes shapes themselves. It keeps the model cleaner for unfolding and reduces the file size as well. Holes themselves can also be modified in shape using the 2D sketch model.
As I am designing buildings with primarily flat surfaces I mostly do manual unfolding. There a special feature of the program called the "triball" and that makes it quite easy to rotate parts. However if you wanted to design in the sheet metal mode of the program it will do automatic unfolding. Or you can create solid shapes such as the several types of modifiable cone shapes that are standard parts in the library that you can drop into the scene and then drop a (sheet metal) material onto the surface and have it wrap automatically conform to the object trimmed to the exact surface shape of it and then have it generate an automatic flat pattern derived from that wrap.
You can create your own custom thicknesses of materials and put them into the default catalogs or you can create special libraries of materials you can drag and drop into the modeling scene.
While there are no tutorials for paper modeling here are a few of the video tutorials for the sheet metal modeling functions. Normally you are working in 3D but can also quickly switch into modes using 2D profile sketches for refining shapes.
Example of working in sheet metal mode. He is using a solid model shape as a design reference here which helps you see where he is going with it.
http://ift.tt/1vrmY0B
Lofting a shape with unequal top and bottom sections
http://ift.tt/1F6JeoZ
Here he is doing various types of unfolding, some are imported sheet metal objects.
http://ift.tt/1vrmY0D
The secret weapon this program has unlike any other is called the "Triball". It is a feature that has an axis in it which can be used to reposition objects and features or even moving faces on objects allowing for easy rotation and pattern duplication, mirroring etc. Another advantage is you begin the design in auto contraint mode meaning you don't have to do all that aggravating task of adding 3 constraints to every part or or add constraints to dimension. You can add additional ones if you wish but I have never found any need for that. This alone makes it 4 times faster to model in than most 3D CAD programs.
I have trained and worked in a number of the professional 3D CAD programs, CATIA, Solid Works, Form Z, Inventor, Pro E, etc, but this program is actually fast, fun and intuitive as well as being a powerful modeler with a built in rendering engine. It does have texture mapping ability although I rarely use that function. The company has posted lots of tutorials on youtube as have other users of the program but you won't find any that are specific to paper modeling. There are some video tutorials in languages other than English.
The easy way to begin a paper model is to build a solid core and then wrap your virtual paper material over it. You begin by dragging some of the default shapes into the 3D scene and then modifying the size and shape of them by changing dimensions, dropping holes on them or adding other shapes to them. There will be one of the faces of the shape that can be activated to create a 2D sketch on it. I always rotate that face so that it becomes the surface of the paper. Then after I drop holes for windows and such on that part I turn on the 2D sketch mode and project all the lines of the holes and go back and remove the holes shapes themselves. It keeps the model cleaner for unfolding and reduces the file size as well. Holes themselves can also be modified in shape using the 2D sketch model.
As I am designing buildings with primarily flat surfaces I mostly do manual unfolding. There a special feature of the program called the "triball" and that makes it quite easy to rotate parts. However if you wanted to design in the sheet metal mode of the program it will do automatic unfolding. Or you can create solid shapes such as the several types of modifiable cone shapes that are standard parts in the library that you can drop into the scene and then drop a (sheet metal) material onto the surface and have it wrap automatically conform to the object trimmed to the exact surface shape of it and then have it generate an automatic flat pattern derived from that wrap.
You can create your own custom thicknesses of materials and put them into the default catalogs or you can create special libraries of materials you can drag and drop into the modeling scene.
While there are no tutorials for paper modeling here are a few of the video tutorials for the sheet metal modeling functions. Normally you are working in 3D but can also quickly switch into modes using 2D profile sketches for refining shapes.
Example of working in sheet metal mode. He is using a solid model shape as a design reference here which helps you see where he is going with it.
http://ift.tt/1vrmY0B
Lofting a shape with unequal top and bottom sections
http://ift.tt/1F6JeoZ
Here he is doing various types of unfolding, some are imported sheet metal objects.
http://ift.tt/1vrmY0D
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