Print and cut foam templates

Once you have modelled a piece in Piece Forge, the Unfold to foam tab flattens it into templates you can print, cut out, and trace onto EVA foam. Everything on this page happens in your browser — nothing is uploaded, and nothing is saved unless you save the design itself.

Choosing how many pieces

A flat sheet cannot follow a curved surface exactly. That is a fact about geometry, not a limitation of the tool, so instead of hiding it we let you choose how much of it to accept. The distortion slider is the main control: tighter means more pieces and a closer fit, looser means fewer pieces and a bit more persuading with your hands.

Under the preview you will see how many pieces it made and how big the piece is around and up, then three numbers. Distortion is the worst error on any piece. Seam is how much edge you will be bevelling and gluing — the real cost of a build, and what the tool minimises when it picks a split for you. Foam is the total area, for working out how many sheets to buy.

Keep pieces within one sheet across is on by default. It stops any piece from being wider than your paper, so the sheets tape together in a single column instead of a grid. Turn it off if you would rather tape more and glue less.

Reading a template

• Solid lines are cuts. Cut round the outside of every piece, including its glue tabs.
• Dashed lines are folds. The dashed line at the base of a glue tab is where the tab bends, not where you cut. Lighter dashed lines inside a piece are score lines, drawn only where the surface genuinely creases.
• Seam numbers pair up. Every joint prints the same number on both halves, so two pieces off different sheets can be matched without the model in front of you.
• Bevel angles print along the seam — bevel 22° means cut that edge back 22° from square so the joint closes cleanly. Both halves of a seam get the same angle.
• The arrow points up the piece, and the letter-and-number is its grid position. Mark both on the foam before you separate the pieces.

Which surface to trace

By default the template follows the middle of the foam, not its outer face. When foam bends, the length that does not change is the middle — so tracing the outer face makes every piece slightly too big, and the error adds up over a dozen seams. Change it under Trace along only if you have a reason to.

Crowns and domes

The top of a helmet is not a tube, so it is handled separately. If it is close to flat it prints as one disc. If it is strongly curved it is cut into gores — pie-slice pieces that meet at radial seams — because a curved crown genuinely cannot be one flat piece. Both are normal.

Cutting on a machine or a laser

Under the print downloads, For a cutting machine, laser or projector makes the same templates for a Cricut, a Silhouette or a laser cutter. Pick the width of your material — a 12-inch mat, or your laser's bed — then Download cut SVG or Download DXF.

• Every piece is one closed cut, glue tabs included. The mirror halves the print sheet leaves off are there too, because a machine can't flip the template over.
• Folds and score lines are on their own blue layer (cuts are red). Set that layer to score or draw — never cut — or switch it off.
• Piece labels are on a third layer you can hide or set to draw or engrave.
• Both files are sized in millimetres, so they import at true size. Check one piece's width against the template before cutting a whole sheet.

Projecting onto your mat

With a projector over your cutting table, Project onto your mat shows every piece life-size on the foam: bright cut lines on black, folds and scores dashed. The first time, calibrate it: drag the four yellow corners onto four marks on your mat that make a rectangle you know, and enter its size. That fixes the scale and a tilted projector in one go — check one grid square with a ruler before cutting. Then switch to Project, choose which lines to show, and slide the pieces into place with the arrow keys or by dragging. The calibration is remembered on this device until you move the projector.

Unfolding a model you didn't make here

A helmet you downloaded can be unfolded too: open it in Fit Forge, scale it to your head if you like, and use Unfold to foam templates. A model made for printing is a shell with an inside, so by default only the outside is unfolded; a dense one is simplified to a few hundred facets first, because foam can't follow more. You choose how curved one piece may be — lower makes more, flatter pieces — and each piece stretches at most 3% to lie flat, which foam takes without complaint. The templates come out exactly like Piece Forge's: seam numbers on both halves of every joint, bevel angles, print sheets, cut files and the projector.

The seams are placed for you. Choosing each seam by hand on the model isn't possible yet; if a seam lands somewhere awkward, try a different curve setting or detail level.