software3d.com

A few times when I've gone to print nets for new models, I've had to do some weirdness with net-spacing to save paper, usually a color I have very few of and don't want to waste.
The net-spacing option is pretty useful as-is, but there are times it could visibly be better. For example, sided's triangle-point-pair nets (the ones on 2-fold axes), with edge length 8cm, tab size 0.5cm, 0cm net spacing/margins, on letter-size paper: those nets' vertical space usage is a bit much and I have no idea why, it's just enough to push the last few small-triangle nets into a second page, and I think without that waste all of those nets could fit on one page.
To fix this, the nets' bounding-boxes could be improved, or net-spacing could be split into vertical and horizontal components. Or, would an option for manual net placement be feasible?

Edit: might be relevant to include that this is on Stella4D, idk how this works in other versions

I see what you mean. Ah, and I can see why. It creates a bounding box around the net without tabs, and then adds the tab size on each side. But in this case the tabs don't really reach that far. I'll look into it sometime and see if I can improve it, but it will be a while before I can release a new version.



More difficult would be cases like below, where a tight bounding boxes will still have a lot of space. The nets should be able to pack tighter than this.