Pepakura Available for Mac?

**kjev** · #1 12-10-2011, 11:25 AM

I'm a Vista user, but my Brother-In-Law is not. He wanted to know if Pepakura was available for a Mac.

Does anyone know?

**Loui** · #2 12-10-2011, 01:16 PM

i think 'maybe' i found what your brother-in-law need here Mac Alternative to pepakura? and here's a Pepakura FAQ Pepakura Designer FAQs or just google it 'pepakura for mac' ,hope its help.

**cMags** · #3 12-11-2011, 10:19 AM

The alternatives may work for design work, but if he needs to open .pdo files, then Pepakura is the only option. He can probably use WINE to install and run Pepakura. (WINE is a Windows emulator for Mac/Linux).

**papersmithforge** · #4 12-20-2011, 11:59 AM

Should pepakura or a similar software not be available for Mac there are still ways to unfold a part with whatever software he might be using. Most of the entry/mid level 3d modellers typically have a UV unwrap function. This is primarily used for texturing a polygonal model. However, the same function will actually flatten the polygons of a 3d model onto a 2 dimensional plane according to specified seam lines. The issue is that sometimes the flattening will skew/scale the polygons in an irregular manner so they won't be representative of their actual size, but often times you will have multiple options in regards as to how to flatten the polygons, one of these being preserving their size.

The difficulty lies in adding tabs to the part now and understanding how it has been split open. A video does the job explaining it better than I do so here's a link to a tutorial for a fairly inexpensive 3d modeller that supports this function.

Silo

**cMags** · #5 12-20-2011, 01:13 PM

Still not sure about Mac, but I just tested Pepakura 2 and 3 viewer (don't have a copy of designer), and both failed to run on Linux via WINE. So it seems that may not work.

**jagolden01** · #6 12-20-2011, 01:42 PM

All this just leads me back to my biggest gripe - why don't folks just publish the final model in PDF. That way you can use whatever platform and PD software you like.

Aside from that, my best suggestion is to run Parallels and Windows on his Mac. I do and it runs quite well for me when I'm forced to use it.

**papersmithforge** · #7 12-20-2011, 02:05 PM

I agree with jagolden01 on all accounts. I'm not sure what Parallels is but following the same train of though I would say if WINE or some other such component isn't working for you, you could always go with virtualization software like VirtualBox or something similar to launch a Windows OS within your particular OS and try executing Pepakura that way.