Design Tools
Rhino & Grasshopper
The number one tool appears to be Rhino + Grasshopper + Kangaroo. It’s not cheap!
Note- many of these designs are computationally developed (ie from constituent surfaces defined by math) rather than directly modelled.
- Lotus looks to be a promising plugin for “the design of developable surfaces and the construction of curved creases that connect developable surfaces with cylinders and cones”
- ParaCourse reference page on curved fold design
Other Tools
- Origami Simulator - amazing web based simulator that can handle curved folds. Includes many examples. Can read fold patterns from SVG.
- Pepakura - converts STL meshes to flattened/foldable structures. MakeItZone owns a license.
- Export Paper Model for Blender - this is now included in Blender. Can even generated a rigged sheet that can be animated.
- Origamify Plugin for Blender - decomposes shapes and also sets things up so that you see the folds happening in Blender. See this introductory video.
- Oriedita - designer that includes fold simulator
- Popup CAD - laminate device designer
- Tissue Addon for Blender - no direct support for origami, but possibly “bendable” to the task?