Jun 21 2012

Determining the length of a curve in Corel Draw 11

When designing in Corel Draw, it can be very useful to know the total length of a curve. Since the curve may consist of straight and curved sections, this is not trivial, and unfortunately the user interface doesn’t help you here – it only tells you the width and height of an object. So in [...]

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Jun 5 2011

Red lines (unconnected edges) in Pepakura

I work with the combination of Blender and Pepakura for creating paper models. Sometimes it so happens that a seemingly perfect model in Blender has unconnected edges in Pepakura. These show up as red lines and result in a model where two faces are not connected although they should be. There are several causes. One [...]

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May 8 2011

From Blender to Pepakura to Corel Draw to CraftRobo

Blender is an excellent open-source 3D modelling application. Pepakura Designer (short: Pepakura) is a very useful tool for papercrafting, which converts 3D models to 2D templates which can be printed on paper, cut and assembled into the original 3D model. The two are a great combination for papercrafting. In fact, I found the combination of [...]

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May 8 2011

Converting AVCHD files to MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVI or WMV

It so happens that my Panasonic GH-1 is capable of spitting out so-called AVCHD files (with the extension .MTS). AVCHD is supposedly superior to older video encoding formats, but a lot of old software (such as Adobe Premiere Elements 3) cannot process it. Being a strong proponent of not touching a working system, and seeing [...]

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Feb 23 2011

Lego Group’s fair play

Among other things, this site contains templates that can be used in conjunction with Lego® toys. The Lego Group is rightfully protective of their trademarks, and for anyone providing stuff related to Lego® bricks, it’s a good idea to follow their fair play rules. I usually despise all documents in legalese and am very easily [...]

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Feb 20 2011

Printing and cutting the templates of this site

This site features several models which can be printed and cut. You have three options: Print a model, then cut it manually Print a model, then cut it using Craft Robo Import the artwork and cutting outline into a software for whatever cutting plotter you use, and proceed as required. Option 1 is self-explanatory, for [...]

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Feb 19 2011

Converting CorelDraw to GSD files

Craft Robo’s aptly named control software Robo Master uses a proprietary file format ‘GSD’. I work with CorelDraw, and while CDR is perfect for cutting directly (and in my opinion much better suited for complex Craft Robo projects than Robo Master), there is no way around the GSD format if you want to pass on [...]

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Feb 17 2011

Paper weight and measurements

Ok, so this is one more thing where the shadow world government has failed miserably: Paper weight (technically, grammage) and dimension units, or – even worse – paper size standards. There is the big divide between continental Europe and the British empire, including its overseas colonies, but then there is also a whole mess of [...]

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