Misaligned Elements

Origami needs the dieline elements to perfectly connect each other. This means a cut or crease line should start exactly where the other one ends.

Example?

Let’s start with a simple example. Here is a dieline that looks OK:

Dieline with misaligned elements in Adobe Illustrator

However, if you move closer and make cut lines thinner, you will see the problem:

Zoomed in dieline with misaligned elements in Adobe Illustrator

You can see that the dieline elements are not actually connected. That little gap may prevent Origami from properly traversing the dieline and folding a correct model.

What if the gap is really small?

Origami accepts minimal misalignments (less than 0.01 points) and tolerates small misalignments (less than 0.3 points) to fold non–perfect dielines, but it comes at a price. Here is another example:

Crease line comes very close to the joint vertex of two cut lines

Here we have a very scaled up screenshot of the crease line coming to the cut lines near their connecting point. As the screenshot is zoomed in, the real distance between the connection point of two cut lines and the point where the crease line meets the cut is really small, say around 0.1 points.

As Origami needs to tolerate such dielines, it tries to merge the points that are located close to each other, so it does this:

Origami moves the crease line to end up in the connection point of two cuts

Yes, it moves the crease line to the same point where the two cuts are connected. Or it may move the connection point of two cuts into the place where crease line meets the cut. It depends on the dieline and the point that Origami discovered first.

Of course, the movement is really small (less than 0.3 points), but it may still affect the shape, especially if Origami moves a crease line.

A more complex issue may look like this:

Lots of misaligned elements in one place

Here we have multiple hanging ends very close to each other. Again, as Origami needs to tolerate minimal errors, it has to somehow merge them all into a single point which obviously affect the shape. The effect again will be minimal, but in some cases it may cause further folding problems.

Intersection With Curved Cuts

If the problem point is on the curved path, have a look at the intersection with a curved path page for more information.

What to do?

There are two very simple rules that let you forget about misaligned elements and all the problems they may cause:

All dieline elements must be perfectly connected. Make sure the segments are snapped to each other and there is no gap (even minimal) between them;
No element should come into the middle of another without having a vertex there.

While the first rule is pretty obvious, the second one needs a picture:

Adding extra vertex at the connection point

Here we have a base line (the horizontal one) and two vertical lines ending up on it. The left line comes into a vertex on the base line and Origami will easily join all the segments at that point. The right line comes between the vertices of the base line and Origami needs to add a temporary vertex there in order to join the lines. If another line comes to the same base line say from the bottom, there could be misalignment and guesswork from Origami.

Things may getting worse if the base line above is actually a curve. Origami converts curves to multi–segment lines and lacking a vertex at the connection point may lead to a severe misalignment.

Placing a vertex at the connection point resolves any possible issues and that’s what the second rule is about. Just make sure there is no another vertex really close to that one, so Origami doesn’t have to merge them.

Once again…

Make sure that every dieline element begins and ends exactly at the vertex on another dieline element.

Want More Hints?

Empty Layout — why there is no dieline visible?
Path Is Not Closed — the dieline needs a solid, continuous outline path;
Intersecting Holes — holes must not overlap;
Overlapping Lines — cut and crease lines must not overlap, as well;
Outside Hole — all holes must be inside the outline path;
Invalid Crease — crease lines have limitations;
Impossible Shape — some shapes simply don’t exist;
Misaligned Elements — ends must meet, perfectly;
Elements Are Too Small — keep dieline paths simple;
Interesting Curved Cuts — it might not be easy;
Triangulation Failed — Origami fails to make a 3D mesh of a dieline;
Z–Fighting — what to do with overlapping polygons.

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