Triangulation Failed
Once Origami traced out all the paths in the dieline, but before it starts folding the shape, it converts the paths into the 3D mesh of flat, unfolded dieline.
Origami uses quite a smart algorithm to do so and in most cases everything works just fine. However, there is a chance that something goes wrong and Origami cannot convert paths to a 3D mesh. That’s when you get the “triangulation failed” error.
A Possible Reason
Note that this particular issue is now fixed in folding engine V3 available in Origami 3.2 beta, so if you use the old version of the software, consider upgrading to the latest one.
Once of the possible scenarios looks like this:
This is a folding engine problem which is yet to be fixed, and you can get a better understanding if you zoom it closer:
The red line is an edge generated while triangulating the dieline polygons. Instead of stopping at the crease line it goes further down to the curved cut below. The problem is caused by converting the curves into segmented lines performed by Origami. Origami converts curves to lines and then tries to merge the points that are way too close to each other. The curved cut makes many points and Origami moves some of them closer to avoid small gaps. This ends up with misaligned elements and triangulation errors.
We are yet to fix the problem, meanwhile the solution is to make sure the curved cut goes away from the crease line as soon as possible, so you can do something like this:
for all the locations highlighted by Origami. This usually happens to very small elements, where the exact shape of the curve doesn’t really matter. This should do the job until we fix the problem on our side.
If The Above Doesn’t Help
Check that you use the latest version of Origami. Check if there is a new beta version available, as the problem might be fixed there.
Make sure that you use the latest folding engine and that you fixed all the previous errors and warnings it reported.
Note that we do not accept reports for folding engines V1 and V2. Please only contact us if you have issues with the latest V3 folding engine.
Read more about folding engines
If nothing helps, please contact us directly. As said above, this is most likely the problem of the folding engine and we’d like to see the dieline that caused it. Please share your Illustrator project or saved Origami scene, so we can reproduce it here and suggest the further steps.
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;
- Almost Vertical/Horizontal — crease line is probably misaligned;
- 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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