I like the clean design of the landing page. I downloaded it and started the app and it needs an OBJ file to even do anything, so I wasn't able to play with it at all.
It would be cool if it included sample OBJ files to entice me to find my own later. Otherwise I feel like I just hit a wall immediately in the app will probably not try it again.
The way I tested was search Thingiverse for "angular" and download an STL, then convert it online to an OBJ on the first search result for "stl to obj"
Sadly, some of the crenelations on top of it are just cubes with 2 sides missing that would be impossible to attach to the folded up rook. I imagine there is a ton of loss between a file for a 3D printer, a random convert to Obj with no settings, and this net maker, so I'm not unsympathetic to the problem. It's just that this is a printout that would not be foldable into something useful.
So weird for me to see this popup now on HN as I happened to dig through an old downloads folder a few minutes ago and saw an install file for Pepakura (13/11/2014), and wondered where that sort of thing had ended up... .
I wrote something like this for windows 20 years ago, a friend of mine used it to make some cutout models for an art exhibition.
It's an interesting problem to try to solve. Anything but the simplest model requires more than one cutout, which you then (in my app at least) have to position by hand onto sheets of paper for printing. Performing the unfold to minimise the number of separate sections was not something I even attempted.
As someone who is not into papercraft I'm intrigued, but it feels like it's not for me. If the app was advertised as having a small selection of simple models to get started with, people in my position might be more interested in trying it out.
If I built a Mac app, the reason would be that I use a Mac, as do a lot of other people, and native apps are a lot more pleasant than non-native apps. I don't really understand why it's "restrictive"? There is no restriction happening.
You can vibe code an app like this, relying on OBJ import (no editing apart from cutting/opening constraints), in possibly half a day.
If you doubt me, take, me up on it.
Sure, I have 35 years of experiences writing computer graphics code but I am certain I would just need to provide functional description input to Claude or Codex for this.
Zero architecture or deep 3D know-how.
The only challenge/interesting part is what happens with non-planar polygons (>3 vertices). I.e. deciding if they can be unrolled (approximated with a cylindrical or conical surface enough to 'work' when cut from paper that does not stretch).
You can alleviate this problem completely by always triangulating befor calculating any unfolding solution ofc (and get zero curved surfaces in the resulting paper model thusly).
The rest is rather trivial.
I'm not saying this isn't great, I just don't understand how you could ask people to pay for it, in early 2026.
I can tell that is not trivial. I like to design papercrafts with my kids, and I use Blender but always wanted something on par with Pepakura but for Linux, so I decided to use Claude to build something similar. Furthermore, I started suggesting the Java/JavaFX stack because it is easier for me than JS, but I couldn't even create an STL viewer, so I let Claude decide the tech stack. It chose web/react/etc. (no surprise), the STL was loaded and presented as expected, the unfolding process was harder, and finally I gave up. Claude couldn't figure out by itself the best algorithm; the results were always wrong, and unfolding was just the first feature I wanted. My conclusion is that this is not the kind of application that can be easily resolved with vibecoding; the approach must be different, maybe AI assisting specific building parts to someone who knows exactly how the result should be with low-level detail.
It would be cool if it included sample OBJ files to entice me to find my own later. Otherwise I feel like I just hit a wall immediately in the app will probably not try it again.
Specifically I tried this rook from this chess set. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5994219/files
Sadly, some of the crenelations on top of it are just cubes with 2 sides missing that would be impossible to attach to the folded up rook. I imagine there is a ton of loss between a file for a 3D printer, a random convert to Obj with no settings, and this net maker, so I'm not unsympathetic to the problem. It's just that this is a printout that would not be foldable into something useful.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1078513/files
or this army tank...
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4618182/files
(n.b. under the main image viewer click the "files" tab to explore individual files/extensions)
This one is called Unfolder, it's a different app, made by a different person, etc...
More than one app per category can exist, and that's good!
You’d get STL, Alembic, USD, PLY support in addition to the OBJ.
Do you need cardstock and a cricut machine? Or a laser cutter?
How do you align artwork on the object?
It's an interesting problem to try to solve. Anything but the simplest model requires more than one cutout, which you then (in my app at least) have to position by hand onto sheets of paper for printing. Performing the unfold to minimise the number of separate sections was not something I even attempted.
As someone who is not into papercraft I'm intrigued, but it feels like it's not for me. If the app was advertised as having a small selection of simple models to get started with, people in my position might be more interested in trying it out.
You'd make a 3D model from 3-views then use something like this to unfold it
That has the benefit of letting you create/edit/export the model in a single application instance in a single workflow that is easy with practice.
If you doubt me, take, me up on it.
Sure, I have 35 years of experiences writing computer graphics code but I am certain I would just need to provide functional description input to Claude or Codex for this.
Zero architecture or deep 3D know-how.
The only challenge/interesting part is what happens with non-planar polygons (>3 vertices). I.e. deciding if they can be unrolled (approximated with a cylindrical or conical surface enough to 'work' when cut from paper that does not stretch).
You can alleviate this problem completely by always triangulating befor calculating any unfolding solution ofc (and get zero curved surfaces in the resulting paper model thusly).
The rest is rather trivial.
I'm not saying this isn't great, I just don't understand how you could ask people to pay for it, in early 2026.