Turn Any 3D Model Into a Lasercut Object

This is an instructable to show you how to turn any model in Rhinoceros 5,6,7, or higher into a series of curves you can use with a lasercutter.

Essentially, we're going to be dividing the 3D-model, then splitting it up, and extracting its surfaces.

Using these surfaces we're going to end up with curves that the lasercutter can read and cut as we please.

Rhinoceros 5,6,7, or higher for windows or MAC

Grasshopper plugin for Rhino

Waffle.gha

Example files

Lasercutter

Program to process .dxf-files commonly used with lasercutters, like Flexidesign, AutoLaser, etc.

Glue to put model together

Select your model. It needs to be a polysurface or Subd. To find out if your file is a polysrf or Subd, simply type "what" with the object selected.

Download "waffle.gha" from Food4Rhino (https://www.food4rhino.com/en/app/waffle) , and example files from Parametric House (https://parametrichouse.com/waffle-structure/).

Put waffle.gha into your components folder within Grasshopper.

Restart grasshopper after you've done this.

If it still doesn't work, then right-click the "waffle.gha", and make sure it it "unblocked" under "properties"

Select your object, then open grasshopper, then the example file you downloaded previously.

As in the first image, right-click the "curve/crv"-node, and "select one brep"

Fiddle as you please with the number sliders in the 2nd image - these determine how many slices it will slice your model in the X and Y axes.

Change material thickness to the thickness of material you're going to be cutting in the laser. I add 0.1mm to this to make the assembly process easier.

Finally, select the two nodes, then right click somewhere not on the nodes themselves

Once you've baked the grasshopper-node, then you should get something like what you see here. For the sake of ease, I recommend you group the slices in the X and Y axes respectively, using the "group"-command.

Use the command "extractsrf", and extract the surface on ONLY ONE topside of the object. If not you'll get duplicates of the same slice, and you'll cut away too much material

Use "dupborder" on the surfaces, and rotate the curves so that they face the same way. Think that the lasercutter will only read things from the top-view, so they need to be clearly visible from this view.

Draw a rectangle the size of the material you're going to cut, and drag the curves you already have to fit into the rectangle from the top-view.

Duplicate the rectangle as you need to fit all the pieces. In my case this is a 450x750 mm piece of 3mm thick MDF. In actuality the piece of material is 500x810mm, but the lasercutter is not properly calibrated, so it doesn't cut all the way to the edges.

Select all your rectangles, and type in "planarsrf" to create a series of surfaces.

Select all your curves, minus the rectangles, and type "project", then select the surfaces, and press enter.

Now all your curves are on the same plane, and are ready to be cut.

Select your curves, and type "export", and save the file as .dxf, which your lasercutter can read.

Happy cutting!