Pillbug

Select a closed polysurface, pick the up-face, get a flat pattern on fabrication-ready sublayers in under a minute. Ready for direct DXF export to your CNC router, laser, or waterjet.

What it does

• Measures material thickness from the geometry and shows you the value to accept or override. No built-in gauge table, so steel, stainless, aluminum, and brass all work at whatever thickness you modeled
• Computes the bend deduction for each bend from its actual angle, not a fixed 90-degree allowance
• Works in inch and millimeter documents
• Builds the neutral axis surface and unfolds via face rotation around bend axes
• Outputs to fabrication sublayers with the right colors:
  • Outside cut (blue) -- perimeter
  • Inside cut (magenta) -- holes and cutouts
  • Mark (dark green) -- bend lines, bend angle text, ink marks
• Writes bend angle labels with UP / DN convention so press-brake operators know which side to fold
• Preserves through-holes that cross bend lines (most unfolders drop these)
• Reads optional ink curves from a designated layer for additional shop-floor marks

What it isn't

• Not a parametric Grasshopper component pipeline. If you need facade-scale parametric production with a fully wired Grasshopper workflow, Sheepmetal (EUR 199/yr) is the right tool.
• Not industrial-strength multi-material multi-K-factor. If you need a full sheet metal suite with tight bend deduction libraries across many alloys, SmartUnfold ($299) covers more bases than Pillbug does.
• Not for non-developable rolled sections. Rhino's built-in Squish command handles non-developable surfaces (free, ships with Rhino). Pillbug targets press-brake-bent sheet metal specifically.

Pillbug is the cheap, focused option for small custom welded fab shops who want to point at a part, get a flat pattern, and ship it to the CNC.

Why it exists

Most Rhino-based fab shops doing custom welded work are stuck choosing between Rhino's raw UnrollSrf (free but produces unclassified output that takes 20 minutes of layer wrangling per part) and full naval-architecture or industrial-CAD sheet metal modules (overkill, expensive, complex).

Pillbug is the focused middle option. Battle-tested in production fab work on real welded parts: enclosures, brackets, panels, structural plating. Priced for one-shop, one-Rhino-license budgets.

Install

After purchase you'll receive an email with your license file attached.

1. In Rhino 8, run _PackageManager, search for pillbug, and install. Restart Rhino.
2. Save the license file from the email to %APPDATA%\dfma-tools\pillbug.license
3. Run the Pillbug command, pick a closed polysurface, pick the up-face

That's the whole install. No servers, no logins, no recurring charges.

License

Perpetual. One license per user. All 1.x updates included free. Major version bumps (2.0, 3.0) sold as upgrades.

Support

Questions before you buy or if you hit a problem after: use the support form.