Is there a fundamental difference between a "foam" and "paper" PDO file?

[Rogviler]

Just curious. I don't do foam, but a lot of props and costumes seem to be going that way so sometimes a "foam" file is all I can find. I have yet to try building one, but it seems like going from "foam" to "paper" and vice versa is as easy as turning on or off the tabs... But foam is way thicker than paper so I wondered if there was some other setting that changed the geometry of a model.

-Rog

 

[rjsosongco]

A foam Pepakura file will usually be modified so that it disregards the "thickness" of a piece, since the foam already has substantial thickness.

For example, say you wanted to do a block with dimensions of 3"x4"x0.5"

In paper, you'd have a 6-sided template, as if you unfolded a box. Two sides would be 3x4, two sides would be 3x0.5, and two sides would be 4x0.5. It would create a hollow box.

In foam, you'd have a 3"x4" rectangle template, since your foam is already 0.5" thick No need to template out the 0.5" sides. The box would also be solid foam.

 

[STEALTH]

I made a video that shows how a paper file can be converted to foam. if that helps at all.

 

[Rogviler]

Cool, so basically I was thinking along the correct lines, but there might possibly be parts dragged off that would be too small or not needed in foam, and there might be parts that have been simplified. I'm going to try one and see how it works in paper.

Thanks!

As a side note, I wish you could set it so if you've dragged a part off of the print surface it would also hide it from the 3D view. It would just be handy to keep track of parts you've removed and show any little parts you meant to remove but missed.

-Rog

 

[JayCVenlo]

Paper takes three times as long to build... but you get more detail.
As an alternative to Foam, i use Sintra. It stronger than Foam and you can fibreglas/bondo on to it.