UVLayout

UVLayout is intended to ease the work of graphic designers, enabling them to deliver high-quality UV texture coordinates by flattening 3D meshes. Used mostly in game creation, this application provides the necessary tools requires generate low distortion UVs in a timely fashion.

Its main interface is quite complicated, with lots of options cramped together in a rather small window. As such, taking a look at the documentation is advisable in order to learn about each function and what it actually does.

You start by loading the 3D polymesh you want to process, in OBJ, UVL or PLY format. The object is displayed in another window, enabling you to quickly toggle between orthographic and perspective projection and change the used 'up' axis (by default, Z is used, which is the standard for most CAD programs, but you can also activate free rotation).

UVLayout enables you to customize the light source, adjust the mesh transparency level (using the 'X-Ray' slider), select UV, 3D or 3D textured view and load a background image while editing (with the help of the 'Trace' slider).

The 'Edit' section is where all the tools are found. You can untag highlighted edges, re-normalize and scale the UV unit box, alter shell boundaries and even tweak your 3D objects manually. There are options for setting the flattening optimization strength level, which allows you to slow down the processing speed.

In the attempt to make things easier for you, UVLayout enables you to assign hotkeys to various functions within the GUI.

UVLayout can assist designers in cutting a 3D object into several sections and creating patterns. It bundles lots of options within a crowded GUI, but thanks to the detailed documentation you can easily learn what each function does and take advantage of the feature it provides.