From the course: Laser Cutting: Design for Fabrication

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Cutting a folding design

Cutting a folding design

From the course: Laser Cutting: Design for Fabrication

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Cutting a folding design

- [Instructor] In this video, I'll be demonstrating file prep with a project you can make with your own laser cutter. This is an octahedron, a Platonic solid. It's a greater starter project because all of the sides should be the same length. This design is sized for 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper, but can be easily resized. When you're creating a folding design, you need to differentiate between two types of lines, cut lines, which are standard vector cuts, and fold lines. Fold lines are tricky, because you either want to perforate with a dashed line like this, so the remaining material along the line can fold smoothly, or score the material to create a kind of living hinge. In Illustrator, you can go to Select Same Fill and Stroke to select all of the lines of the same type. I recommend organizing the layers so you can check all of the same types of cut line at once. This design contains interior cuts, fold lines, and exterior cuts. I've made the lines different colors for part of the…

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