[3D Printed Hollow Form: The Hyrbird]

Combine, Refine and Hybrid time!

This week’s project was a collaboration project that involved team work and innovation. We were tasked with creating a hybrid of the past weeks objects we created. With my group members Noor K and Cody Z we were able to combine some of our ideas in order to create something completely new!

ORIGINAL CONCEPTS

Vases - In the creation of these two vase like structures I used a variation of circles for one and squares for the other. These were pretty simple just using the loft function to create multiple curves. The only other detail added in these was using BooleanDifference to create a hole in the centers to give them a more vase like quality.

Tentacles & Coral - These two were created the same way, the idea here was using the ‘Sweep1’ function with various circle sizes to play around with the kind of objects I could create. In the tentacles I used a big base and swept it to a smaller end with the reverse in my coral. I then multiplied the single sweeping shape and altered various sizes too them and bunched them together to create a more interesting shape.

Tentacle Legs - This shape also employed the same technique as the last ‘Sweep1’. This was slightly different as here I made them connect together in the center to support themselves so it almost looks like a reverse of my tentacles.

Repeating triangle - with this shape I again used loft but I creating it was a little tricker. I used the loft with one square in the middle and 4 surrounding squares and lofted them all up to about halfway and slightly out. Then after that I lofted them all to the center square in the middle to all meet. From there I simply had to copy the shape a mirror it onto the top.

EVALUATION OF THREE CONCEPTS

Tentacle legs

A) Function;

B) Form;

C) Self-Supporting;

D) 3D Printability;

This object is meant to stand on its four supporting legs that connect in the middle. Functionally it could be a sort of holder for something small to be placed on, or a cage like contraption. Otherwise this piece is more of a decorative object than anything else. Aesthetically this piece was made based on a sort of tentacles or wire frame structure. Similar to the legs of the robot from the incredibles. It is self supporting as the legs are meant to be that supporting material we would use if the object wasn’t able to be supported. It is able to meet up at the top and support itself through that suspension. The legs are curved slightly to give it a more pleasing design but the question still remains will this 3D Print? In quickly throwing this into slicer and adding some of the details we needed we see that our only problem area may be where the legs start to connect at the top which is a relatively quick fix. As it stands now this piece has a high success of printing however the inside part where the legs meet may look very messy and could be fixed before transferring it to slicer for a final rendition.

Coral Reef

A) Function;

B) Form;

C) Self-Supporting;

D) 3D Printability;

This object functionally is more a decorative idea then anything else possibly for someone who wanted a coral inspired 3D printed object. Form wise it’s based off a coral reef specifically those one that have tubes which includes a picture. This object would be self-supporting as the pieces don’t go far enough away from the base for it to topple over. It also ends up flat at the end so the likely hood of it printing well is more likely. One problem area that I already see may be the slope of the coral reefs. The issue here may because they’re so inclined there may be issues with the spacing of the pieces creating larger gaps and holes in the final pieces.

Vases

A) Function;

B) Form;

C) Self-Supporting;

D) 3D Printability;

Looking at another concepts were come vase like shapes. The two vases I created were relatively simple so I created two. These functionally would work as vases or something to hold objects, like pencils or makeup brushes, which it could pull of really well while looking aesthetically pretty. The two forms here were virtually created using the same process however I used two different shapes, one circle one square. The construction and there aesthetic quality was to create to similar vases that had very different shapes one sort of flows vs the other more blocky nature. These would pretty easily support themselves as there structures don’t have any crazy challenges posed in there design. I’m confident that these shapes would print pretty well. The only area of issue again is the slopes. If the gaps are to far apart in slicer we may run into some issues.

FINAL RENDER OF OBJECTS IN COLOR

Noor's Concepts

Cody's Concept

BRAINSTORMING HYBRIDS AND SKETCHES

The First Hybrid: Mac and Cody’s shapes

The first concept I came up with was really elementary, just a simple mashing of ideas. The shapes used here, my tentacle legs and Cody’s structure was supposed to be a sort of fountain theme. The idea here was almost like a fountain that has four pillars of water sprouting out. The only thing I thought to change at this level was possibly having a twisted base to add in some of the ideas Noor had with her objects. Overall this design was a little to clunky and presented a few issues in it’s creation that I decided to move onto a second idea.

The Second Hybrid: Mac and Noor’s shapes

The second concept had a little more thought placed in it. Here I went for more of the merging of concepts with Noor’s bloom pot and my tentacles. The idea here was more the ‘twisted tentacles’ that sort of warped effect that the bloom pot had. The ability to execute this idea was a little messy. I wasn’t able to properly warp the tentacles the way I wanted and so this idea also went in the bin.

The Third Hybrid: Mac and Noor’s shapes

The third concept I came up with was one of my favorites at a concept stage. ‘Heart of the Sea’ was a combination of Noor’s heart shapes and my tentacles. The idea here for the heart of the sea was tentacles holding up a heart. It’s pretty clear though even at the drawing stage how this wasn’t going to work out. After a good effort in Rhino it seemed that this just wasn’t going to work out. The tentacles would work fine but the heart was just not working out with how it lay on the tentacles. A quick trip to slicer told me the slope of the heart wasn’t going to work out.

The Fourth Hybrid: Mac and Noor’s shapes

This final concept ended up being one of the better ones. The concept came from a few different shapes Noor and I had and came to me after thinking about starting from scratch. I incorporated the vases structure ideas presented in Noor and I’s objects and tied them in Noor's bloom pot and my repeating diamond structure. By messing these objects we come up with an almost twisted tree like structure that allows for an aesthetically pleasing vase. The combination here has elements of what objects we used but is able to stand as a design by itself.

ADDITIONAL SKETCHES OF CONCEPT DESIGNS

FINALIZED HYRBIDS

Concept #1(Mac's) Twisted Vase:

The creation of our hybrid encompasses quite a few ideas. The original shapes used, the flower, came from Noor’s use of the ‘bloom pot’ ; the lofted shape she created particularly stood out and we knew incorporating It somehow would produce interesting results. The second Idea we implemented was the repeating diamond shape object I created. This was a relatively simple shape when I first created it but the repeated shape that mirrors could give use a more interesting design and so I tried to add the repetition into our final design. Finally the last element I added was the idea of the vase. A lot of the shapes Noor and I had were vase-like objects that held items. To me this was something we should carry to the end as it was so prominent in both our ideas. So finally I wanted the hollow shape to be able to hold something and because of that we included a bottom

Concept #2 (Noors) Heart Tentacles:

This hybrid incorporated a combination of a few different ideas and was definitely exciting to try and think about. In the first attempt, Mackenzies tentacle shapes were used along with Noor’s heart. In the second attempt Mackenzies tentacles, Cody;s shape design and Noors heart were used to create a sea inspired piece

After some desicions we ultimatley decided to go with my design. Both design were really cool concpets and ultimatley we went with mine because the printing process was going to be a lot more seemless print option and had a better likelyhood of printing without disastor.

MOVING INTO PRUSALICER

Here Noor was able to put our object into PrusaSlicer and check the printability of our object. From here she was able to make some lovley complilation gifs of this process.

3D PRINTING

Here Noor and I were able to get various picture throughout the process of printing and with her skills she was able to put together a compliation of the process in gif form.