What is a method to create an jigsaw puzzled sphere in Blender?

user_1255909 0
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I'm just a newbie in Blender.

Going to create an jigsaw puzzled sphere model, like wikipedia one, or these plastic 3D puzzles you have probably saw.

puzzled globe

For now, i have created Python script which creates arbitrary plain 2D puzzles with Bezier curves, which later can be easy be converted to a mesh

curved puzzle

But how to wrap it around a sphere ?

PS. Just had an idea - to unwrap cube on the puzzle plane, copy edges as negative as shown below

unwrapped cube

(there no copy of edges on the picture yet). Then with affine transformations, transform each 2D cube face to respective 3D place, and then apply Object->Transform->To Sphere modifier.

What do you think ? Is there a better way to create puzzled sphere ? Thanks for your attention !

EDIT: You know, there is a dodecahedron, which can be also assembled from pentagon faces

blender modeling python
3 Answers
user_12559090

Actually 30Kb of Python code, and cube faces are transformed by hands sample

Just finished it with affine transformations of cube faces. See a heart from 7x7x7 cube, so here is plain->cube->sphere->lattice transform

heart from plain->cube->sphere->lattice

I think this method makes it possible to create any 3D shape from squares, even not sphere ones.

Was going to print it in plastic before metal. Here it is 3х3х3 and was made right before 14' February Plastic heart Plastic heart

user_12559090

It's much simpler than you may imagine.

  1. Download the addon from the given link above (https://bitbucket.org/ios29A/blender_puzzle_generator).
  2. Install it (refer to the documentation).
  3. In Blender, create a cuboid puzzle (add-curve-puzzle. Choose cuboid in the shape option).
  4. Convert the curve into a mesh (object-convert to-mesh...)
  5. Select the cuboid and enter edit mode (tab)
  6. Select all (A)
  7. Mesh-transform-to sphere.
  8. Move your mouse.
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