by Anton-Florey·Modeling
Images © Anton-Florey. Used for product review; image policy.
Listed in the blender_extensions library, PolyZamboni is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later, with its source code available on the developer's GitHub page. The current version targets Blender 5.1 and newer.
PolyZamboni is a Blender add-on that prepares meshes to be built as paper models. It works with cuts, glue flaps, and colour-coded edges so a mesh can be unfolded onto a sheet of paper.
Edges are marked by role: red for manually added cuts, green for manually glued edges that can't be automatically cut, and blue for automatically added cuts. Red regions flag areas that cannot be unfolded onto paper, and if any exist, no paper model can be created. The Separate Materials operation adds cuts between faces with different materials, while Remove Auto Cuts clears automatically added cuts if the result isn't what you want. Pressing Alt+X opens a glue flaps pie menu for adding, removing, and flipping flaps on selected edges.
The add-on can also transfer face materials to the paper model instructions, supporting solid colours or a single texture image. It reads a material's base colour from Principled BSDF nodes and a texture from an Image Texture node; multiple textures aren't supported. PolyZamboni runs on Blender 5.1 and newer across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
PolyZamboni is best for blender users preparing meshes as unfoldable paper models with cuts, glue flaps, and material-based colouring.
PolyZamboni is completely free to download and use.
PolyZamboni is compatible with Blender 5.1 and newer. Builds are provided for Windows, macOS on Intel, macOS on Apple Silicon, and Linux, so you can pick the download that matches your system. You can add it by dragging and dropping the downloaded file into a Blender window, or by using Blender's Install from Disk option. If you're on an older Blender release, you'd need to update before running this version, since 5.1 is the minimum supported.
PolyZamboni can be installed by dragging and dropping the downloaded add-on into a Blender window, or by downloading the file and using Blender's Install from Disk option. Separate builds are available for Windows, macOS on Intel, macOS on Apple Silicon, and Linux, so choose the package that matches your platform before installing. Once added, its operations for cuts, glue flaps, and material transfer become available inside Blender.
PolyZamboni uses colour-coded edges to show how a mesh will be cut. Red edges are manually added cuts, green edges are manually glued edges that can't be automatically cut, and blue edges are automatically added cuts. It also marks red regions, which are areas that cannot be unfolded onto a piece of paper. If any red regions exist, no paper model can be created, so they need resolving before you can build the model.
PolyZamboni can transfer face materials to the paper model instructions when your mesh has materials assigned to faces. It supports solid colours or a single texture image. To read a material's base colour, it searches for Principled BSDF shader nodes, and it takes a texture from an Image Texture node. Multiple textures aren't supported, and applying more than one would result in a single random texture, so plan material assignments with that limitation in mind.
PolyZamboni is listed as free in this catalog. It's distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later, an open-source licence, and its source code is available on the developer's GitHub page. For the latest details on licensing and any terms, check the developer's page directly. Because it's GPL-licensed, you're also free to adjust the code yourself, something the developer explicitly invites for extending the material-transfer feature.
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