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!