Here's a new software called Lamina I'm playing around with the demo of, and it looks super keen. It's a tool that lets you import in complex, curvy shapes generated in a modeling application, and it figures out how to make that form using flat sheet material. Kind of like the sheet metal CNC applications, in that it takes a complex form and 'flattens' it out for cutting, but more geared towards sculpture than manufacturing. So, for example, here's a shape I made in Revit:

I then exported it out of Revit, and converted it into a 3DS file, and imported it into Lamina (it numbers the surfaces to sort them out later).

I then told Lamina what kind of material (thin plywood) I was using, what kind of edges I wanted (I picked tabs, it's got lots of different options), and it figures out what flat bits are needed to make up my curved form (and it also adds the tabs and a number to each one for ease of assembly!)

Here's a single part.

It works pretty well! It's fun to play with. Don't really have a project yet to apply it to, but I think we might buy it anyways someday soon and just make some funky, curvy forms for the heck of it... maybe some organic chairs or something...