The Chalice
Harrison and I originally chose 3 of each of our concepts to collaborate on. These objects had shown potential not only to look and function great but also to push the boundaries of what the 3D printer
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| Fig. 3 |
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These objects included my spiraling water tower-like object (fig.1), Harrison's angular, scaffold like low poly web (fig.2), my faceted seashell spiral (fig.3), his hole filled cube (fig.4), my teardrop arch (fig.5), and Harrison's incredibly detailed almost Roman arch (fig.6).
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| Fig. 7 |
After some debate we settled on the first two objects, as they seemed the most visually pleasing and most malleable to combine. We started sketching out ideas and toying with concepts in Rhino to try and figure out how we were going to integrate these two objects into each other (fig.7). We both agreed on the idea of creating an object that wasn't just one solid piece, but instead fanned out to contrast with the limitations of the hollow form print. We wanted an object that looked like it wouldn't be possible to print as a hollow form object.
We toyed with some concepts of spiraling pillars and prisms, but weren't satisfied. So we tried replacing my spiraling pillars with Harrison's tube like structure (fig.7). It looked alright but by then we both realized that to fit the low poly, angular look of the web, we had to make the entire structure angular. So while Harrison changed his structure from tubes to rectangular prisms I played with some more angular concepts. After gaining the rough concept of a solid piece held up by Harrison's web like design, we realized that it looked too simple. The web like design was interesting but the overall object was missing something. After playing with the top section and taking inspiration from my first design we turned the object into a chalice (fig.8). This added to the aesthetic enough to look like a functional and visually pleasing object but at the same time wasn't too busy or complex.
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| Fig. 8 |
Of course this also presented some challenges. The bottom of the glass wasn't printable because of the rounded bowl, and the base of the glass had to be large enough to support the top. So we integrated a large spike into the bottom of the liquid container itself and into the base of the cup. After getting the basic structure down we ran with the idea, double layering the rim of the chalice to create a solid closed polysurface, and then stretching, tapering, and scaling the cup until it resembled an actual chalice (fig.9).
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| Fig. 9 |
Harrison and I were working on separate computers, so while collaborating and focusing mainly on the object that Harrison had started, I was playing on my computer as well creating a design of my own. While Harrison's was the main one we will most likely use to print, his had strayed far away from the angular, low poly design we had to begin with, so I created one that was closer to our original concept. An interesting feauture of y side design was the fact that the hollow web design actually fed directly into the bowl of the chalice, meaning the entire object could be filled, not just the top bowl. Even though Harrison's design is our main object, I would like to print mine as well just to see how well it worked. At the end of the day, after some minor issues with trying to boolean union the entire thing together, the chalice was complete. The next step was to print it, and possibly our second design if the first went well.
We booked our time slot, which worked out to be right after class. The object was a chalice, so it needed to be big, and after exporting it and loading it into netfabb we realized we had built it in millimeters and not inches, so we scaled it accordingly. Aware that the limit was 8x8x8 inches we scaled the chalice to be 7.8 inches, or 198 cm tall. After waiting for forever for slicer to process and generate a g-code for this massive and complex design, we were ready to finally print.
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