Meeson Pae Yang

From "Daily Serving" publication: 

Los Angeles-based artist Meeson Pae Yang creates intricate sculptures and installations that explore technology through the context of the body and the natural world. Developing systems that mimic both micro and macro environments, the artist often builds an entire ecosystem within a singular installation. 

The artist received her undergraduate degree from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and has completed recent projects with Lawerce Asher Gallery and JK Gallery, both in Los Angeles. Her most recent project, Traverse, can be seen 5661 Atlantic Ave in Long Beach, California.

3D printed ROOMs

The world's first 3D printed room was completed recently by architect designer Michael Hansmeyer along with Benjamin Dillenburger.   After years of trials and test in which the technologies of the computers inability to render such files and the printers inadequate ability to generate the details of the architects vision, the project has finally come to fruition. The work has been called Digital Grotesque, and is an 11 ton installation that the designer are saying is the first 3-D printed room (not that we are expecting many in the future).  The work is incredibly ornate, recalling the Rococo and Baroque periods of architecture in a truly 21st century manner.

Hansmeyer hesitates to call the process simply parametric, insisting that the project's algorithms operate "procedurally" at both universal and local scales.  "Thus a single algorithm can produce not only the overall form of the room, but also it's local curvatures, concavities, convexities, folds, and creases."

If Hansmeyer and Dillenburger had attempted to print these intricacies using normal printing materials like polymer plastic, they would have had a mess on their hands.Hansmeyer opted instead for sand that, when aggregated with a binding agent, formed a workable sandstone capable of expressing extreme sculptural depth. He and Dillenburger developed a sand printing process that virtually eliminated all constraints exhibited by all other 3-D printing techniques.

The design and refinement process took upward of a year, mostly because 3-D modeling engines couldn’t render or visualize the whole room at once. The installation’s quarter billion surfaces would have crashed the program in no time.

Geek Group

For the final installment of this blog, I would like to introduce the ideas behind Geek Group. According to their website, the Geek Group Mission Statement follows as thus: "The Geek Group provides access to science, technology, engineering and math by developing programming and facilities for individuals and institutions to learn, explore, innovate and play at an independent pace according to their needs."

Membership is not limited by location or commitment. There's something for everybody - in Grand Rapids, or anywhere else in the world (or further). And best of all: 

MEMBERSHIP IS FREE: Yes, that's right.  I just said free.  Of course, it's a basic membership, but it's enough to get you started and for you to find out if this is the right thing for you to continue your pursuits into 3d printing. 

Basic membership is free to anybody, anywhere in the world. You get access to forums, live chat, videos, and project information. Geek Group often engineers projects and demos live with our membership, allowing anybody to work on flagship ideas. So you can become part of a team of designers.  A great way to build your resume if you decide to pursue 3D printing any further! 

Paid Membership:
For internet members who want to be supportive, Online+ Membership is only $20/month. This gets you perks to exclusive content, 10 hours of lab use a month, and access and control over a completely separate LiveStream that’s available 24/7.

The group recently published an article about how to throw a 3D printing party.  Here is a video highlighting that event. 

Siert Wijnia talks about Ultimaker and 3d technology at TEDxUtrecht

Siert Wijnia, CEO of Ultimaker speaks at the TEDxTalks in Utrecht. Ultimaker launched the Ultimaker 2 3D printer to the world. On release of the printer, Ultimaker promised they would release the source files for the printer to help promote 3D printing. The files are now available on github.com “From day one, we have been recognized for our open source culture and we feel that open source brings the field of 3D printing to a higher level.” writes Ultimaker in a statement. “It is our firm’s belief that sharing knowledge does not mean losing knowledge. On the contrary, we learn from each other, inspire each other and use each other’s knowledge to create even better products and develop impressive innovations world-wide.” Martijn Elserman, co-founder of Ultimaker said: “Since its introduction, the Ultimaker 2 received a very positive response and its demand has been beyond expectation. This strengthens our confidence in our philosophy to innovate and improve together with the worldwide community of 3D printer enthusiasts.” In conjunction with the release of the Ultimaker 2 source files, the Dutch company announced the appointment of co-founder Siert Wijnia as the new CEO of Ultimaker. Co-founders Martijn Elserman and Erik de Bruijn will take on supporting roles responsible for the Ultimaker Experience and Evangelizing 3D printing respectively.

Artist Jake Evill

Jake Evill is a graduate from the Architecture and Design School--Victoria University of Wellington--in New Zealand.  He has been exploring concepts of creating exoskeletal type casts for human broken bones.  The designs are very streamlined in comparison to the tradition plaster and plaster/gauze casts that we are accustomed to seeing.   These casts are functional, can go in water and don't have the smelly mildewy odor often associated with traditional casts.

Evill says that the "Cortex exoskeletal cast provides a highly technical and trauma zone localized support system that is fully ventilated, super light, shower friendly, hygienic, recyclable and stylish." Patients would first receive an x-ray to pinpoint the outer shape of their limb.  Lastly, the Cortex cast would be 3d printed, with optimized levels of support around the break area to provide a snug fit.


Here are some images of from his website which can be found by clicking HERE

Laurence Beckx

Laurence Beckx is a 36 year old Dutch 3D designer with considerable work experience, currently living in Zagreb, Croatia.
He was born and raised in Jakarta up until 7yo before moving to the Netherlands where he lived for more than 2 decades, majorly in Amsterdam and has also lived in London. 

His company, called Tenth Helix is a self employed company founded in 2001, initially for web design services and further expanding into a variety of creative services, specialising in 3D graphics.

His work is, and as Laurence puts it, ".inspired by, the golden ratio 1:1.618 regarding universal aesthetics in form & function. "De divina proportione " a perfect balance in art & architecture; Proportionate patterns in nature, from human biology, to astronomy. A further fascination developed into the im-perfect, its beauty and its significance as a whole also involving the dimensions of time and motion. 

....the 'Tenth Helix' resembles an uncalculated logarithm of imperfection and its quirks that ride alongside perfection in a silent symbiosis; challenging contemporary trends and bringing forth thrive for innovation. Much alike the mythical 'Tenth Planet' believed by the ancient Sumerians to be responsible for the evolution of our DNA helix, its orbital route overlaps our solar system in similar union.

Ernst Haekel

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel was a German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including anthropogeny, ecology, phylum,phylogeny, stem cell, and the kingdom Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularized Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the controversial recapitulation theory, claiming that an individual organism's biological development, orontogeny, parallels and summarizes its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny.

The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures 

Other 3D printing companies (besides Shapeways)

There are two other sites that I've been looking at the do 3D printing besides just shapeways. The first one is called Ponoko. About two years ago, the company Autodesk 123D, a community for users to design, create, and share 3D models, partnered with Ponoko, Techshop, and 3D Systems to allow users of 123D to create actual objects with their designs using the 3D modeling software. 3D Systems offers on-demand printing services and personal 3D printers and kits. As of right now, it is still free to use. Ponoko offers more than just 3D printing. It also offers laser cutting in a variety of materials including thin wood. Their webite can be found by clicking HERE. 

Another of the potential ways to get started 3D printing is using a place called Techshop, which have locations in various cities (mostly larger).  Their facilities includes laser cutters, plastics and electronics labs, a machine shop, a wood shop, a metal working shop, a textiles department, welding stations and a waterjet cutter. Members have open access to design software, featuring the entire Autodesk Design Suite. Huge project areas with large work tables are available for completing projects and collaborating with others. 

How It Works (according to their site)

It's simple. Anyone may attend classes. For a monthly or annual fee, members can reserve and use TechShop's tools upon successful completion of equipment-specific Safety and Basic Use (SBU) classes. 

And a fourth place that one might go to in order to get some of their designs created in a tangible form is i.Materialise.  Checking out these sites may provide better and more suitable for each individual. 

Article

This is just a cool article that I wanted to share about 3D printing. It has everything from printed Ears to Ramen Noodles. Totally digging on this article.

Artist Mika Aoki's blown glass sculptures.

Another artist that I've been looking into is Mika Aoki. Her sculptures emulate the shapes and patterns of micro-organisms as well. S

Mandelbulb 3D

So, I've been putting off this post about Mandelbulb 3D, but basically. Mandelbulb 3D is a program that generates fractals of various shapes and sizes that can then be slice and run through the Meshwarp to then be printed by a 3D printer. Developed by Jesse and a group of Fractal Forums contributors, based on Daniel White and Paul Nylander’s Mandelbulb work, MB3D formulates dozens of nonlinear equations into an amazing range of fractal objects. The 3D rendering environment includes lighting, color, specularity, depth-of-field, shadow- and glow- effects; allowing the user fine control over the imaging effects. The user is allowed to manipulate several of the mathematical data points to generate new fractals. It's a very touchy and sensitive program, and one needs to be delicate when adjusting the figures as one slight change and the whole shape can disappear completely from the computer. I have had success changing the figure in increments of about .10 degrees, but even that can cause it to go completely off the screen. The Mac download cost about 20 dollars, although the sites tell you it is free. In order to 3D print from this particular program, there are a lot of factors and 3 programs that need to be used in order to slice and then generate the obj file to send to the MakerBot, if that is the printer that you are using. There are a number of videos that are online that highlight this process. One place to look is on youtube. This guy Don Whitaker, has many tutorials about the application. He shows you how to zoom and explore the fractals and eventually in his series, he shows how to slice and print. Here is the introductory video. He has produced. Another resource that is good to check out is the Fractal Forum. This forum has lots of nerdy guys (and gals) that are into everything Fractal. It's not all that interesting to me, i just want to mildly look into the ideas and shapes that are based on fractals. Anyways, here is an overview of the program from the fabulous and witty Don Whitaker.

Fab Labs

I've become very interested in the Fab Labs that have been introducing a way for general public and institutions to fabricate with the use of computers and other machines.

Introduction to 123D make

We are using a program called 123d Make,

1.  Import your image
2. go to cut layout and then you can look under the left side window in Manufacturing settings, to a dropdown window to find different sizing... .make sure the univform scale is o, then you can change the height, etc. then you can select a number of sheets.  From there, you can check out the various slicing methods and come up with a way to put together your object either using metal, wood, posterboard, cardboard.

Pamela Sunday is a Brooklyn Based Artist/ceramicist that makes clay sculptures and tile works based on microscopic forms and other forms in Nature.  Hives, organisms, spiky beasts, atoms, and other forms serve as her inspiration.

Here are a few images.

Art forms in Nature

Generally, one of the things that I intend to do when doing research about a particular concept is consider not only the realities, in nature, but also other artists that might be working with a concept.    I have begun by looking into some of the shapes of nature and saved the ones that I was most fond of into a folder on my desktop.  Here are a few of those images that i am drawn to.

the following are grains of pollen viewed from under a microscope

And, other microscopic forms.

And of course I had to look at some images of Diatoms

Diatoms are delicate unicellular organisms that have a yellow-brown chloroplast that enables them to photosynthesize.

Where can you find diatoms?

At the end of the winter they are most numerous in fresh water.

The cells of diatoms are ideal subjects for study under the microscope. They show complex patterns of very fine punctures and they often have all kinds of ornaments.

Pediastrum

are forms that can be found on the tops of ponds

They also tend to have a fractal type shape, which is perfect for me to try and emulate, but in a 3D printed format.  So, I will keep these in mind when coming up with my shapes. 

Fractal Proposal (continued)

Artists working with Fractals

There are a number of artist’s that are already using fractal geometry to base their artwork in the 3D printing technology.

Here are some images of some of the work based on fractal geometry that is  being made by 3D printers. 

And here are some links to blogs, images, and interviews with artists that have been working in this manner

From Deviant Art

An interview with Artist Janelle Wilson

Shapeways Fractal Designs

and here are instructions on creating a 3D fractal for a 3D printer

Creating a 3D print based on Fractals

I will be posting more about these specific articles, and information about other artists using fractals as well in the up and coming future. 

MIDTERM PROPOSAL: WORKING WITH FRACTALS.

For Midterm,  I was asked to create a proposal on the work that I"d be doing for the rest of the semester, and I chose to work with Fractals to create 3D print shapes.  Fractals are the actual mathematical composition of things in nature.  There are many of other 3d Print artists that are working with fractals and fractal geometry to create interesting designs using this new technology.

Here was my proposal

For the second half of the Spring 2014 semester of 3D printing, I am proposing I will work on creating a series of organic, yet mathematical, forms that emulate nature but are based on fractal geometry.  Examples of this in tangible form could be loosely represented by the fractal.

My personal work is based on investigations into microscopic photography.   I create paintings, sculptures, and video installations that fluctuate between artful and scientific.  The work is exhibitive of science, yet organic and flowing. From equations, fractal geometry will produce an object that is cumulatively comprised of its self over and over again.   The mathematical fractal seems very scientific and is visually awkward (Figure 1-1), however there are many forms in nature that are exhibitive of the fractal, yet do not have the awkwardness of computer-generated fractals—such as the snowflake or Romanesque Broccoli.(figure 1-2, 1-3)  Even though it was only discovered in the late 20^th century,  the fractal has actually been used in art for ages and ages.  The Roman’s used the fractal they called “the golden ratio” to create the Parthenon.  The balance between nature and mathematics is what I will seek in drafting objects that I wish to pursue in the drawing/cad/and sculpting software available to us.  

In addition, I would like to pursue the drafting of housing pieces and manifests, which will be geometrically based to produce these forms with the additions of other materials—including small plastic dowel rods.  Here are a couple of images that I shared on the fractals

Project update. Exquisite Corpse

It's been a while since I've been on here to blog about my progress and all the things we are doing with 3D printing.   After we drew our self portraits using the free version of Sculptris, we moved on to drawing a bunch of body parts for what was called: Exquisite Corpse.   After everyone had drawn a couple corpse body parts, which they drew from a hat,  we uploaded all the parts into a folder, and were able to pick and choose parts to make our corpses.  We used a program called meshlab.  Meshlab will convert files from stl to obj. etc.

MESHLAB
According to their site: MeshLab is an open source, portable, and extensible system for the processing and editing of unstructured 3D triangular meshes. 
The system is aimed to help the processing of the typical not-so-small unstructured models arising in 3D scanning, providing a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering and converting this kind of meshes. 
The system is heavily based on the VCG library developed at the Visual Computing Lab of ISTI - CNR, for all the core mesh processing tasks and it is available for Windows, MacOSX, and Linux.. The MeshLab system started in late 2005 as a part of the FGT course of the Computer Science department of University of Pisa and most of the code (~15k lines) of the first versions was written by a handful of willing students. The following years FGT students have continued to work to this project implementing more and more features.   

After a lot of struggle with the meshlab and getting sculptris to upload images that were originally produced in tinkercad, I had to print this, which is not one of my best designs, but was the only thing that I could get into the makerware software and ready in time.   One of the lessons I am learning about 3D printing is:

THERE ARE MANY MANY PROBLEMS THAT NEED TO BE ANTICIPATED.  THIS IS A NEW TECHNOLOGY.  EXPECT TO BE SHOCKED AND EXPECT TO BE FRUSTRATED!  

Exquisite Corpse Assignment.  After the objects have been made.

To compile your corpse together in Sculptris.

Go to the import window in the bottom of the tools panel, then select add object and import the object.  You want to make sure that your brush size is proportionate to the object you intend to manipulate.  Then,  go ahead and add the object.  Once the object has been added to the scene, you may (WITH GLOBAL SELECTED)  rotate the individual obj. or stl. Files until they are arranged

Monday February 10:  In Class Notes

Today we are discussing the software associated with Zbrush.  They have software for free online and make some more advanced that can be purchased for finishing of these projects.  Zbrush goes by the name pixologic @ pixologic.com and you can access the free software under the sculptures heading down at the bottom of their page or by clicking this link.  SCULPTRIS AlPHA 6 has a free download and some instructions about how to operate.

It's best to work the symmetrical qualities of your forms first  and then the nuances or differences that need to be worked into the piece asymmetrical.

You can click on a wireframe and other tools on the left side.  you can also hit "Shift" and drag to pan the view of your object.  It's a very simple program once you get started and learn some shortcuts.

Shortcuts:

You can also hold down the space bar and adjust the SIZE of your brush and the Strength or Detail.

anytime you are holding the shift key what ever the brush is, it's going to smooth over the area that you are working or stretching.  Don't be afraid to be aggressive at first with your sculpting and then smooth the areas as you go.

The Alt button will take any of the tools and make them do the alternate.   So, if you are inflating and you would like to reduce, hold the "Alt" key.

Here is a video tutorial that covers the basics


TOOLS:
There are nine tools on the the left side

Draw and Inflate work similarly

The crease tool will add accentuation marks in detail.

holding the option will reverse the work that you have done should you extend things too far and of course the shift click will smooth things up for you.

Self Portrait Project:

It is possible to bring in photos and work from with the Sculptris.  Our professor recommended this as it is one of the best ways to learn working with the software in a couple days.  There are many details that can be added that and stretched to assist in creating a somewhat lifelike portrait.  We are transferring one frontal view and one

Here is a link to a basic head modeling tutorial