A03

Paneling Tools

This was the beginning of creating grids and surfaces. I experimented with making the grid both from an array, curve, or from a surface.


Three unique surfaces that will be used to create the panels.


These 2D panels were created from surfaces.


These 2D panels were created without surfaces, but using a grid to make the surfaces custom paneled.


This was the first attempt using the 3D paneling. I generated the pattern from solid tools, but found that the offset of the points is not very far, and therefore it does not look as 3D as the others.


I used two lofted closed curves to create this 3D custom panel. This time, I offset the distance of the points to be much further, so the three dimensionality of the pattern is much more apparent.


Rather than creating the grid on an open surface, this was created by two lofted surfaces. In addition, instead of creating the pattern with the solid tools, I used a single curve and extruded the curve to make a three dimensional closed curve. Because of the way I designed the grid, there is space between the vertical layers, giving a different appearance to the grid design.


This last 3D paneling design used an extruded curve once again, but this time each component of the pattern touches, making it more fluid.

This is my final board for A02. I struggled with designing this board, because fitting the desired diagrams and renderings together, in proximity to one another was difficult. After changing the layout from horizontal to vertical, I decided to stay with this layout, as it describes the direction of the contours and the way they come together. 

Throughout the construction of this project, I ran into a number of issues. Creating the notches in the layers was difficult, and after constructing the physical model I learned a number of things I would have done differently. First of all, the notches should be designed so that the perpendicular layer fits in tightly- this means that the dimension of the notch and of the chipboard should not be exactly the same. In addition, if both layer directions had notches, the final model would probably come out sturdier, and have evenly spaced layers. Overall, this project helped me learn many factors that are very important when translating from digital fabrication to physical modeling.

Unfortunately last week I realized that I didn't account for the thickness of the chipboard that I was going to use when laser cutting each of the layers, and I had to restart the whole process to make it accurate. This process of restarting encouraged me to rethink my design of the waffle for the cube, though. I decided to explore the difference in the design of the cube if the contours were taken horizontally and vertically, versus at perpendicular diagonals. Although I am more intrigued by the design on the right, with the diagonals, I see problems that would arise while building the cube. For example, the extrusion is not from the diagonal surface, but instead to the CPlane. In addition, there are pieces that would be very difficult to connect, because of their shapes. Nonetheless, I am going to choose the cube on the left, with the horizontal and vertical contours, and experiment with the spacing between layers.