Create a scalable box die cut template with open source software
I see much box die cut template in my life and freepick contais many of that. To create it many people use tools like Inkscape or Illustrator and that is very scalable, but it scale on X, Y: you cannot define the depth, the widith and the hight of your box and change automatically the box die cut template. Also Templatemaker have not so much templates, but they are scalable using some specified measures parameters.
So to draw the art into the box software like Inkscape or also Gimp can be enought but the blank scalable box die cut template can be created before with a better software to be scalable using measures parameters.
Valentina
Valentina is a free and open source software to create Pattern Sewing, but it have the feature that we need: set variables and use it to create a 2D "Pattern" also if we want to use it for a box and not for a dress.
It works on Linux, Free BSD, Windows, MacOS and Haiku OS.
In particular that software is ready to manage better the different sizes without scaling in X,Y the 2D image.
So download and install Valentina to get started!
Tape: for misures
Run Valentina and go to Mesure>Open Tape
You can create variables w, h and d (for width, height and depth).
Save and close the tape.
Draw and make "detail"
Now create a new valentina project by clicking on new.
From Meausure>Individual Load, load the mesure that we made with the tape.
Now we can start to draw by using poin, line and other features.
Start by drawing your Idea, using @h, @w and @d for mesure instead of the explicit value.
When you finish the draw you can select the border of the draw to create detail.
When the detail is created under the detail window you will see the Draw.
If you need to see also the construction line inside the border of the figure you can add it with the Internal layout tool untder the last one tool used.
Layout and generate model
Now we can click on Layout with following settings to create the printable version.
If we want to change the measures we can reopen the work, go into Misures>Modify Current and edit the value of w,h and d, if you use it you will see your model changin.
Now you can go to File>Layout>Export as and select pdf or svg as you want.
Advantages
If you want to print it to test with A4 printer you can by scaling the models or better you can use tiling export (File>Layour>Export as and choose "pdf tiled files" as File Format) that export a matrix of A4 sheets that merged togheder create the model.
Also if your work use more than one piece of draw Valentina is able to optimize it into the sheets to minimize the printing pages.
Conclustion
Now you have the scalable box die cut template and you can use other software to draw inside it and print. For a better tutorial you can find here some viedo obviously in it the aim is creating Pattern Sewing.
Be creative and share your ideas!
