Surfaces of many engineering structures, especially, those of ships are commonly made out of either single- or double-curved surfaces to meet functional requirements. The first step in the fabrication process of a three-dimensional design surface is unfolding or flattening the surface, otherwise known as planar development, so that manufacturers can determine the initial flat plate which is required to form the design shape. In this paper, an algorithm for optimal approximated development of a general curved surface, including both single- and double-curved surfaces, is established by minimizing the strain energy of deformation from its planar development to the design surface. The unfolding process is formulated into a constrained nonlinear programming problem, based on the deformation theory and finite element. Constraints are subjected to the characteristics of the fabrication method. And the design surface, or the curved shell plate is subdivided by automatic mesh generation.