Customize your own papercraft globe with any equirectangular image

Papercraft globes are very cool, but they're tricky to build (especially the final closing of it...😖). But if you like them, here's a website that lets you make different versions with your own texture!

One note though: it says on the website that it only works with the Google Chrome webbrowser, and unfortunately when I tried with IE11 and Edge, they were right and it didn't work... 😟 But on Google Chrome, it worked as advertised and you're all set to customize your papercraft globe with the texture of your choice! 🙂

Customize, download and build your own papercraft globe (by SIZIMA soft):

http://sizima.com/paper360/index.html

First, if you don't want just a blank globe, you will need to upload the texture you want to use (using the arrow pointing up on the top left). It can really be any image file, but if you want to texture to wrap perfectly around the papercraft globe, you should use an equirectangular projection.

You can make one yourself, but you can also find lots of examples online if you do a image search:
equirectangular Google Image search

Then you can choose which version you want to make:

• The easiest version is actually a regular icosahedron, like a d20 die from Dungeons & Dragons. 😉
• The second version is actually an origami cube, more than a globe.
• The third version is a collapsable globe, so you can flatten it and pull it into a globe again!
• The fourth version is one of the two basic ways you can 'easily' make a papercraft globe, it this case as 'petals'.
• The fifth version is the ring version of making a papercraft globe, which I think is a bit easier than the petal type (and they even tried making closing it a bit easier, by making it in two halves, and then twisting it to lock it when you put them together 🙂)

You can use the sliding bar at the bottom to see what the unfolded template looks like and how it will go together, and when you're happy, you can download the template to print and build it by clicking the arrow pointing downwards on the top left.

 Have fun making your own papercraft globe(s)! 😉