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Entries in sculpting (3)

Tuesday

Aug312010

Design-Worthy Cement Printing

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 |

Two years ago we wrote on Contour Crafting's experiments with building-sized 3D printing, in which they were designing a house-sized 3D printer assembly to extrude concrete into shapes suspiciously resembling buildings. The concept is almost unbelievable, where you could erect most of a house at the push of a button (and a few deliveries of fresh cement). We haven't seen many further developments since then in the world of concrete printing other than D-Shape's amazing printed monument.

However today we ran across Factum Arte and Anish Kapoor, who have been experimenting with cement printing for some years. They're not printing buildings, but instead are focusing on sculptures with a technique that "combines intention with chance and the live properties of the different cement mixes".

Kapoor has published a book detailing the entire process, entitled "Unconformity and Entropy", available right here. From the book:

Some three years ago, Adam Lowe and I wondered if it were possible to make a machine that could generate form. The printing machine formed a model for the basis of our thinking. After much trial and error, we found a surprisingly simple way of making a workable engine.

Once we had started making objects, a new reality began to emerge. These were objects like no others; they seemed to obscure the border between artifice and event. These are objects that are more akin to natural things than to those made by design.

One issue we foresee is the weight; moving tons of cement sculpture could be tricky. In the case of printing an onsite building or monument, weight is less important, but for sculptures you simply must print them on a moveable pallet.

Be sure to watch the videos that show the rather swift cement printer. It reminds us of a room-sized RepRap. Watch out for that Y-axis!

Via Factum-Arte and Magpie Aesthetic

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The Parallellipipeda Exhibition

Monday, February 8, 2010 |

The Singularity Hub reports on an exhibition taking place at the M Museum in Leuven, Belgium, where the Parallellipipeda Project attempts to leverage the Parallelepiped geometric shape.

Amazing sculptures, plates, light fixtures and even furniture are being shown until 25 April. They've even included a 3D scanning booth, courtesy of EyeTronics, in which you can get your own face scanned - but only on the 7th and 11th of February.

Many of the exhibits are sourced from iMaterialise's .MGX collection, but these are only displayed until 11 February. More on the .MGX collection in a future post.

Via Singularity Hub, Leuven.be, iMaterialise and YouTube

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3D Printing Replaces Sculpting?

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 |

We think it will. And so do some of the participants discussing the idea at CGSociety.org, the Society of Digital Artists. A recent forum post by RobertoOrtiz, Forum Leader, asks:

I been wondering lately if the advent of cheap 3d scanners and advanced tools to handle scanned 3d data will allow for a renaissance of the old fashioned Model/Creature shop.

and

Of course if sculpting/ model building makes a comeback thanks to new 3d methods, it would be REALLY ironic, since ease of cg was the root cause for their original demise.

DIscussion ensued, and two points of view emerged:

I would rather stick my hands in a nice cool chunk of earthware anyday of the week than fool with "intersecting faces" and "keeping the topology clean".

and

It is much faster to alter a concept pic design in zbrush than in a real sculpture.So it is better for sculpting work even if you are working off someone else's drawing.

So it seems to us that one of the barriers to a 3D future is the ease of use of software. When large portions of users must resort to "cool chunks of earthware", there's clearly something wrong with our software.

Via CGSociety.org

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