Digital Design - Module 02 Semester 1, 2019 Brett Lynch
916343 Sean Guy, Studio 16
Critical Reading: Kolerevic B. 2003. Architecture in the Digital Age
Kolerevic described three fundamental types of fabrication techniques in the reading. Outline the three techniques and discuss the potential of Computer Numeric Controlled fabrication with parametric modelling. (150 words max)
The three fundamental types of fabrication techniques that Kolerevic outlines are: subractive, additive and formative. Subtractive fabrication involves the removal of material from the volume of material provided. It is a very wasteful form of fabrication as it is wasting material and also has its limitations depending on the number of axes in which the milling machine being used has. Additive fabrictation involves the process of adding material layer by layer on top of each layer to form a solid volume. This is the most efficient form of fabricaton as the limitations for fabrication are far less than that of subtractive fabrication as well as there being less material being wasted. Formative fabrication is the process of using mechanical forces, restricting forms, heat or steam to deform and reshape a material into the desired or required shape. Computer Numeric Controlled (CNC) fabrication allows the ability to have the control over the accuracy of the fabrication of the materials which is crucial in being able to fabricate parts of designs that are created using parametric modelling. This is becoming more and more common in the modern world, especially in building design.
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SURFACE AND WAFFLE STRUCTURE Surface Creation
Beginning to create the surfaces for M2 begins by constructing the bounding box and then deconstructing it to find the edges. This then enables you to control points within the edges of the bounding box to create lines and loft to create the two surfaces. Through contorlling the edge and point selectors I was able to create iterations of surfaces before choosing the surface for my final design. To create my panels I used a range of curve and point attractors to change the attraction of the 3D and 2D panels and used four different shapes per full panel. I used dispatch using a gene pool to create the dispatch pattern which enabled me to control the pattern of the different 3D and 2D shapes that make up my two surfaces. To create the waffle, using my final two lofted surfaces, I had to change contour distance to represent my surface. For my surface I decided to be safe and have 15 as my distance as I wanted to have a solid structure for my panels. I then had to use a cull index on my Z-contours as S2 had 1 more imput than S1 which meant my contours were not lining up. I then decided to cull the bottom and top Z contours as the only fit half the structure rather than hitting all four corners. Once this was done I was able to create a baked output of both the panels and waffle for laser cutting.
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Surfaces Iteration 1
Surfaces Iteration 2
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SURFACE AND WAFFLE STRUCTURE Surface Creation
One of the things that interested me most was the ability to just easily control the selection of edges and points through grasshopper to easily create iterations of the surfaces and then have the ability to compare them to eachother. The main thing that interested me in terms of the surfaces was their interaction with each other and how they would draw closer together or move away and create a interesting lofted surface. I chose the third iteration in this example because of how the two surfaces read together. In the model you can see how on both surfaces certain edges draw closer to each other and how others draw away which creates the interaction between and away from each surface.
Surfaces Iteration 3
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Isometric View
With my panelling I decided to do roughly 50% 2D and 3D on eachside with the holed 2D shapes creating a pattern within each surface. Each shape had its own attraction point or curve so that each shape was different to the other and it created different interactions between the shapes surrounding it.
For my waffle I chose to more Z and X contours/fins as I wanted to create a sturdy and sound structure for my panels rather than risk having the panel not be strong enough to hold.
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SURFACE AND WAFFLE STRUCTURE Laser Cutting
For the laser cutting of my waffle I nested my cuts together to ensure that I didn’t waste as much material as possible. For the labelling I decided to place the labels of each part behind a fin to try and hide it as much as possible once it was constructed. For the laser cutting of my surfaces, unfortunately when unrolling, a lot of my surfaces didn’t want to unroll and overlapped which meant I had to unroll some parts individually and just group them together as seen above using the surface number and a label to distinguish which belonged to which. I also rotated my panels 180 degrees so that the etch marks printed on the inside of the panels so would not be seen once constructed. I also chose to keep one edge per piece as etch so that tape was not required to hold it all together once laser cutting was completed.
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Isometric View
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Exploded Isometric View
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SURFACE AND WAFFLE STRUCTURE Matrix and Possibilities
Lofts
1.1
1.2
} 50 0,1 ,15 50 {1
{150,0,150} {150,105,150}
1.3
0,150} {150,9
{0 ,0, 15 0}
{0,75,150}
{0,105,150}
{0,0,0}
{150,0,135} {0,9 0,15 0}
{0,1 05,1 50}
{0,60,150}
Attractor / Control Points (X,Y,Z) Attractor / Control Curves
{0,75,150}
Grid Points
{150,150,120}
{45,150,150}
Key
1.4
{150,0,135}
0} ,12 50 0,1 {15
{150,90,0}
{0,30,0}
{150,90,0} {0,150,30}
{15,150,0}
{30,150,0}
Paneling Grid & Attractor Point
2.2
,15} {0,0
{0,0,0}
{0,60,0}
{0,75,0}
2.1
,0} 0,0 {15
{150,90,0} {150,1 50,0}
2.3
2.4
{Curve Attraction}
{Curve Attraction}
3.3
3.4
{91,-139,0}
{91,-81,0} {0,85,0}
{91,348,0} {991,272,0}
{Attractor Point Location}
Paneling
3.1
{Attractor Point Location}
3.2
The main observation I observed in my matrix was the visual difference in which the interaction between surfaces were and then the interaction between the point or curve attractor and the grid points. The variables per row were: the controlled selection of edges and points to create lofted surfaces, the control of the placement of the point attractors and curve attractors and then finally the insertion of a different shape to pannelise the surface. Based off my matrix I decided to used the surfaces created in 1.4 due to their interaction between the edges. I also ended up using all four point and curve attractors and all four pannelised surfaces to create my pannelised surfaces.
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SURFACE AND WAFFLE STRUCTURE Photography of Model
The main interest for me in my laser cut model was just the interaction between the different shapes which pannelised the surface and the waffle structure. The other point that interested me was the permeation of the light through the panels which had holes and the shadows in which this created within. Overall, apart from the difficulties in which model making at such a small scale creates, I am reasonably happy with the outcome of my model and the visual aesthetics it creates with its combination of 2D and 3D panels and the patterns in which they visually create.
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Visual Scripting of Parametric Model
Part B of M2 began by creating the bounding box for the task and then deconstructing it to find its faces using surface domain number to split the bounding box up into a 3x3 grid. I was then able to adjust the grid using point and curve attractors. For my final output I decided to use a different point or curve attractor for each grid point to create a different interaction between each which facinated me. Then once findind the centroid of each mini square, I was able to use the centroids and the remapped grid to created shapes within the bounding box to bake out and booleandifference. I started off with spheres and played around with different shapes such as; Icosahedron, Octahedron, Tetrahedron and of course spheres. I even played around with using rotation and scale which used the centoids and remapped numbers to change the rotation of a shape or scale of a shape accordingly. However I did not like the output of the scale attractors so ceased using it but created a couple of outputs using the rotation to create some interesting booleaned shapes. For my final output I also used cull pattern and gene pool to determine the cull pattern to combine two different shapes in one booleaned surface.
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SOLID AND VOID Surface Creation
I chose to capture these results as they were two different shapes which created completely different visual effects as well as textural when 3D printed. As the furst booleaned shape was all smoothly textured and the second being a lot more jaggered and rough created a completely different visual aesthetic as well as texture.
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SOLID AND VOID Isometric view
I chose this iteration as it fascinated me the interaction between the two different shapes; sphere and iscosahedron. This ceated a relationship between smooth and rough surfaces which not only creates a visual aesthetic but a textural relationship throughout the volume. The spatial qualities through the voids in the structure allow light to permeate through while other areas would be shaded. However the solids create an interaction with the voids as it determines areas in which can be accessed and which cannot as well as permeability in allowing sunlight, rain and wind to pass through the model.
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Section
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Section
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SOLID AND VOID Matrix and Possibilities
Grid Manipulation
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
Key Attractor / Control Curves
{Curve Attractor}
{Point Attraction}
{Point Attraction}
{Curve Attraction}
Surface Manipulation
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
Booleaned Surfaces
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
Task B Matrix For my grid manipulation I decided to use a range of point and curve attractors to create different outputs in which each had a completely different visual appeal and interaction between each grid. I found for me the curve attractors were more successful in the ability to create greater differentiations within the grids. For my surface manipulation I used a range of different shapes which used a range of different point and curve attractors to create different outputs in which the booleaned surfaces show, with 2.3 using a rotation attraction based of the point attractor using the remapped numbers and centroids of the grids.
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SOLID AND VOID
Photography of Model
The reason I chose this 3D print as my final one was because of the interaction between two different shapes (as seen from the two different photographs). The interaction between the icosahedron and the sphere was not only aesthetically pleasing but created an interesting relationship between the textures. This was due to the sphere creating the smooth textured surface as opposed to the icosahedron creating a rough and jaggered textured surface. This then creates an interesting threshold within the solid as it can act as moving from one structure to another as each side has different textural properties which i find to be an interesting concept.
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Appendix
Process
Adjusting control points to create lofted surfaces
Iterations of lofted surfaces
Adjusting point attractors to manipulate the grid
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Appendix Process
Creating 3D and 2D shapes and their bounding boxes
Adjusting the panels using different shapes
Using dispatch and gene pool to create a pattern
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Appendix Process
Creating Z contours and culling due to S2 having one more contour input than S1
Final Z and X contours ready to bake
Final layout of Z and X fins ready to transfer to laser cutting file
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Appendix Process
Final layout in the laser cutting file for panels
Final layout in the laser cutting file for the waffle
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Appendix Process
Adjusting point and curve attractors to manipulate the grid pattern
Using the rotate command using the remapped numbers and grid centroids to rotate the icosahedrons
Using cull pattern and gene pool to create a output which contains the merging of two different shapes
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Appendix
Process
Using the makerbot program, I was able to arrange and preview my 3D print to assess time, material and most imnportantly its orientation to assess which orientation required the least amount of support structure as well as least amount of time.
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SCALE STUDIES
Surface and Waffle Structure
Architectural Scale
Furniture Scale
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1:1 Scale
SCALE STUDIES Solid and Void
1:1 Scale
Furniture Scale
Architectural Scale
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