Rotation-ation!

This outcome had several things that we can begin to use in the digital workshop from now on, Enjoy!

We finally got around to completing the Geometric pattern tutorial that was posted on here aeons ago - which we totaly pwnd and did a much better job at ;)



Following up from the preview of the rotational engraving samples - here be a rundown of the process with added pics for you all to see!



all starts here - select rtation attachment in the printing preferences, this will as for the diameter of the object, and the height of the document.



This is the view from trotec before we're ready to press go.



In trotec we have to define certain perameters for the functioon to work.


Alt + Ctrl + S will open up this dialog box allowing you to select rotation as an assessory



And this one - select no moves which should stop the laser head from colliding with the rotation axis. (Important!)

One thing we discovered was that your stock needs to be bigger than the artwork to allow for the laser to run off each edge without collisions.









The next step would be using different materials, and also marking and cutting which I whink would look great!

Paneling tools

Elo!

Had some fun with the paneling tools plug it - without getting overly fancy, using a custom paneling grid on a surface - I was able to create an interesting surface pattern on 12mm ply!



A simple surface just over 200mm square, rebuilt with 6 u and v points, slightly edited to give depression and curvature.

The paneling grid was set to 15 in both U and V, for a rather densely populated surface, the custom shape was a simple paraboloid.

I opted for ply as it will illustrate the contours more so than acrylic would.








Thanks for looking :)

Tips for file creation

Make a fill from a stroke weight - Object  > path  > Outline stroke



For text, always create outlines! type > select outlines

Engraving pixel based artwork



Open your Jpg, bmp, png etc :)



Select the image, and choose embed to leave it as a pixel image or live trace to vectorise it.




Edit > convert to grayscale



Once grayscale, to achive a high quality engrave it may be neccessary to adjust the colour balance and increase the contrast.



Alternativly, use the live trace to vectorise the image. Use with caution as it can alter your artwork dramatically.

File Setup for Trotec Laser

Hello!

Just a friendly reminder on quick file setup for your lasering needs!





Make a new file! On startup of Illustrator you should see this dialog box, or File - New!

Specify the size of the artboard, either default paper size or a custom measurement.

You can also choose how many artboards you want to work with. (see additional Blog Entry!)



If your docuement isnt already set to RGB, do so by File > Document Colour Mode > RGB.



There is a chance that colour mode will not have changed within the colours pallet - so that will need to be updated.



All marking and cutting strokes to be set at 0.01mm

I'd reccomend removing strokes from fill engraves and text.




For strokes that are to mark, change to red 255



Cutting strokes change to blue 255



For fill engraves, change to black 0,0,0



If you have loads of empty space in your document - edit the artboard size as to reduce material and the overall size of your job.

Get your work as close as 1mm between objects for maximum efficieny.




Get really fancy - share lines from other parts of your drawing to reduce time and increase effiency in the lasering! You must ensure that you have no double lines in the document.



If you have double lines, use the direct selction tool to select and delete.



Save your work!

Current accepted file types are Adobe Illustrator CS5 or a PDF.

blobby thing

This was an intersting project, by the time I got around to starting it!

The model is a prototype for an instiliation, the model would be then moulded and cast in cermaics. 

The data was from Rhino, and the model - being deeper than my CNC Mill could handel, was split into 4 and 3D printed on the Zcorp 510.

Once printed, they were Infiltrated with resin and joined, filled, sanded, 2K primed and sprayed a gloss white.

There wasnt one - but two! It took 3 days, mostly spent sanding, fillig, priming, sanding, filling, priming, sanding, filling priming  - you get the picture. All this whilst trying to opperate a workshop with MA students running around!



Overall I was pelased with the outcome - its been a while since I used alot of the finishing skills I had supposedly aquiered at Curvature Group!

Essential IOS apps

Got a shiny iPad for  the start of term? And now you want to justify spending all that student load on the stupid thing! Now you have all the stars on Angry Birds, maybe its time to get somehting of use done on it. Well never fear, I've done alot of the grafting for you and found a few great apps that might make for interesting experimentation with input technologies, and digital machining from lasers, to 3D printers!

Enjoi ;)



This app resembles a scriptographer script 'sketchy structures'. It allows for prety lines to be drawn whislt joining lines are automatically rendered - This gives spiderweb style drawings and the samples people have done looks rather inspired. Made by the same people who brought us sketch chair.



If there was ever an advertisment for mind altering drugs - this would be it! Look no further than Forge of Neon! This thing is super cool and a great way of spending time  - it allows you to change the colours, the patterns, the animations and their speeds...take a screenshot and email yourself a PDF, would make for a super cool engraved image, milled relief or printed tile!




Netfabb Mobile allows you to carry and view .STL files around withyou on iOS devices, it also has a feature to upload to Netfabb Cloud, a service that will analise and fix your 3d model ready for printing. Handy i suppose, but use along side their desktop counterparts.



Adobe Ideas, A neat little sketching tool, free of charge and allows for simple sharing of drawings, no idea how people manage to draw with these things but sample files looks hawt!!I use this app often thanks to its clen user interface, despite me being useless at drawing with it!



I got an email with a DXF attachment, this worked great to see what the client was talking about - not to bad!



For the couple of pounds this app costs it works pretty well, giving anohter function to that door stop you just brought! It makes a neat little second monitor to your primay machine over wifi - which menas you can wander around the house desktop in hand! I use it and the responce is good, it is the only way to get flash running on your iPad device!



iDesign is a mobile vector based drawing app, with those cool little magnifiers when you hold down your finger. This means you are actually able to join two lines together!! Again, the sample images look great so I guess with some patience they to could produce some wonderouse vectors!



Isculpt 3Dlooks pretty freakin awsome! no export yet though, but as its autodesk I imagin development will continue nicely. Will update when they do. Must have app.



Autocad something or other - simple viewer and some editiing toold - dont know caus cad is rubbish!!!


iDough - This was king untill autodesk came and pissed all over it! Shame really - it does still offer exports which is great! and after 3 sessions I had something that resembled a face - so its pretty intuative and again, the samples on the app store looked incrediable so i dont doubt its capabilities. As I said, you can export as an OBJ so 3D printing is definiatly something you can try!


 Harmonius does some pretty neat stuff - drawing with repeat patterns and allows for export as a PDF which means this should be a great toy to play with if you want to engrave some of your outcomes!

Hellow Flower looks good, all be it quite specific as to what it does. If you want to 3D print a flower, then it's the app for you! Either way, its a good way to play with 3D geometry, you can edit several things about the flower - such as amount of petels, their size, spread etc, and once you have done that - you can export them as an OBJ and get some further modelling done in Maya, 3DS Max or Zbrush!
 This is a pants app - wouldnt bother!

Of course, this list isn't the be all and end all of iPAd apps that could be used with digitial machines - as they're being developed alot, and often. If something catches your eye, be sure to ping me with a link!

Untill next time,

Have fun!!