Maze Bowl

From virtuality model to reality for a maze bowl : 

After some encouragements in August 2016, I decided in December 2016 to made a real Maze Bowl similar to this one

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/photo/maze-bowl?context=album&albumId=2985220%3AAlbum%3A1529788

Here is the steps I had to get through in order to make it for real. 

I began with a simple revolution form

This surface is then meshed with Meshmachine from Daniel Piker. 

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/profiles/blogs/meshmachine-update

This mesh is used to generate 2 maze paths 

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/maze-from-mesh?page=2&commentId=2985220%3AComment%3A1559033&x=1#2985220Comment1559033

which are thickened using (not exactly the same indeed)

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/thicken-a-network-of-lines-with-specified-half-section

These new meshes are now smoothed using Catmull&Clarck Subdivision from Giulo Piacento

http://www.giuliopiacentino.com/weaverbird/

Then in order to unroll the mesh, all inner points are suppressed.  I tested Meshmachine and MeshMixer, but I finished by doing a special script in order to do that. Mesh are spaced accordingly to the thickness that is planned to be used.

Lines are added and will be used to add the hole for rivets.

These lines and these 2 meshes are the unrolled. I made a new script to take into account the mesh but also the holes (lines), so I get a contour and hole center for rivets, screws ... Contour of mesh is smoothed with splines. 

Theses curves are then nested (by hands) and saved with a SVG export I did for Rhino

http://www.food4rhino.com/app/save-scalable-vector-graphics

As I haven't access to a laser cut I had some difficulties finding the good laser cut, the good material and the good size.

Online http://www.formulor.de seems to be good but size is limited, SVG must have some very special features (very very thin lines widths) and I didn't find the interface to control the scale of what I send. But formulor.de has the advantage of the number of materials available. 

I instead choose SCULPTEO, they are specialized in 3d printing but they began laser cutting some months ago. I wanted some flexible plastic but I finished with 2 mm grey solid cardboard 780 x 580 mm. I choose aluminium rivets 3.2 mm x 8 mm (thickness of plastic from 3.5 to 5 mm)

My SVG export worked well, I didn't send the numbering in order to lower the cost, bad idea because I finished by doing it by hand. Less than a week after I went to Sculpteo.  I get this. After making my bowl I discover that I mirrored the bowl! 

After 98 rivets I am there, still 80 rivets to add and after that I paint it. 

Here a comparison between the 3d model and the real painted and riveted bowl. This bowl has a diameter of ~30.5 cm and a height of 7 cm.  

Load Previous Comments
  • Laurent DELRIEU

    Hello

    as you can see on 5th and 6th image I suppress all inner points of the mesh and then I use my own mesh unroller. It is quite simple to implement. You begin by putting on the plane a face and then you continu for faces that touch the faces already on the plane ...

  • Alex Hans

    Fantastic! Could you post the definition for this?

  • Laurent DELRIEU

    Hello Alex, no I keep the definition for me. But most of the script I used were published on this site. The only one not published is the suppression of inner points of the mesh. So it is possible to replicate the work.