Tim Kent: Spring Quarter Post 2. Advanced Digital Sculpture 450

Picking up from post 1, after the wood was laminated together, I sent them to the laser cutter to have the slices cut.

I sliced it vertically, with the plane going from front to back. This allowed me to have a larger surface areas of slices to ultimately utilize the grain and geometric quality of the laminated wood.

Here is a picture of all the pieces cut, and taped up ready to be stained. The tape is to protect the wood from the stain and poly urethane, because wood glue only bonds raw wood surfaces to other raw wood.

Here is a picture of the aluminum strips I created to wrap around the edges of the wood. I marked out the width of the wood, and cut the strips on a stomp sheer.

The next step was to attach the aluminum sides. I did this by two applications. First I used Loctitie professional super glue to adhere the aluminum to the wood, and then they were secured in plain with stainless steel screws.

Using nail clippers, I cut the edges off, and tension from the screws was enough to hold them down.

Lastly, here are two pictures of the layers being glued together, after a few coats of natural finish stain by Minwax, and a few Polycrylic urethane coats:

As you can see from the photos, a core system was set up to insure all slices line up, but the holes were left off of the front and back layer so they would not be visible.

For more work and info on my artwork, check out my artist website: www.timkentart.com

Tim Kent

Danielle Aras - Pepakura Final

This is my final Pepakura piece. I modeled it in Maya then used Pepakura, Illustrator, and Rhino to create the layout for the laser cutter.

 This is the original model in Maya. The open windows were not originally part of the design but while putting the piece together I decided to leave out those pieces both for aesthetic reasons and to make it easier to put together.

This is basically what the layout of the cut file looked like (there are also some extra pieces that do not belong to this sculpture). I ended up leaving off the large base piece as well because it didn't really need it and it was much easier to put together with the bottom completely open.

Tim Kent: Winter Quarter Post 3

     For the final I brought in a project I created from serial slicing, and one I created with the pepakura method. As mentioned before, I tried to bondo the chip board model, and it was taking an unpractical amount of time to sand it to the consistency I wanted. Processor Scott introduce me to Aqua Resin, which I used on E flute cardboard instead. The E flute model was much stronger and easier to work with than chip board. It took generous amounts of wet media without warping, which was nice. after a few layers, it was very structural. I sanded in between coats to keep brush work and build up in creases as minimal as I could. Here is a picture of the cardboard before and after Aqua Resin. I plan to and it flat and give it an industrial looking finish by dry brushing graphite over 3M Super 77 spray adhesive.

     This is the finished result of a Serial Slice project. I layered Plywood with masonite in order to contrast the colors. I used a belt sander, grinder, die0grinder, and orbital sander in order to give it its final shape. I finished the wood using Minwax Spray polyurethane only, and wet sanded in-between coats.  For such cheap material, I was really impressed with the results! I am excited to continue exploring this technique in Advanced digital sculpture class next quarter.

     For fun on my own I created another laser engraved image of the 3D model I scanned into the computer.  I start by doing a contour, and then finding an angle I like in perspective and using the draw2d command to capture it. However, this time I used the contour command around a polygonal version of it, which created a more geometric line quality. The 300lb water color paper used gives it a nice quality feel. 

     More images of the work posted here, as well as other art mediums including painting, mixed media, and replicas, can be found on my artist website: www.timkentart.com

Tim Kent

Danielle Aras - Serial Slicing

This is my first serial sliced cardboard shape. I modeled it in Rhino and contoured the shape then labeled and laid it out manually.

This is what the Rhino model looked like:

For my second sculpture, I used the serial slicing script in Rhino. I had a problem with part of my model overlapping itself so a few of the slices didn't work properly, but I was able to use the contour tool to manually create the missing slices.

This is what the model looked like in Rhino:

This is what the dxf file I sent to be laser cut looked like:

Tim Kent : Winter Quarter Post 1

     This is a sculpture I designed a few years ago, and originally carved in plaster. Since then, the 2D drawing has been a basis for my sculptural work. This is to say, all my sculptures are a transformation from the original 2D paper drawing. I was excited to be able to take this practice into the 3D world. Using the 3D scanner, I was able to trace a foam maquette into the computer, and after a few hours of cleaning up the file, it was ready to be played with in Rhino. I am excited to now be able to morph the form dimensionally, rather than being confined to the limitations of 2D rendering. 

     One of the first things I did in Rhino was learn how to contour the form. This was a fundamental step for learning how to Serial slice an object. One I had a contour drawing of the sculpture, I went into the perspective mode of Rhino and used the command "draw 2d". This created a drawing of the contours in the prospect I was looking at it. I was then able to laser engrave this image using the laser cutter.

     Finally, I got my pieces back from the laser cutter, and it was time to put them together. Here you can see that process. In my following post I will show some more completed works. Digital applications of sculpture has been really interesting so far and a nice break from oil painting. I am excited to see how it will influence my art.

More of my work, including oil painting, drawing, sculpture, mixed media, and replicas can be viewed on my website: www.timkentart.com

Tim Kent

Sami Lee Woolhiser: Serial Slice #1

Hey Everyone! This is the design and build of my practice serial slicing project. It kind of looks like an abstract architectural form, this would be an awesome building.

Here is the original form in maya shown in solid and line view. I created several pyramids and "boolean union"ed them together to create one cohesive shape. 

Form in Maya

Next I divided the structure up into many slices using a Rhino plug in called Grasshopper. The red lines show the slices that the laser will read later to cut into the material so the pieces can be stacked to create a 3 dimensional object.

Form with serial slices shown

Here are the slices organized and ready to be laser cut. The magenta edges indicate an outer cut, blue an innercut and red is text which is rastered in rather than cut all the way through.

Sheet#1

Here is the practice stack of the structure, Looks good-time to glue!

Practice Stack

 I glued and clamped the structure in three increments so it would dry neatly.

Andrew Landers: Poly Shape Paper cut

I started by making a model in Maya to export as an Obj file to send to a program called Pepakura which unfold the object for me so i can then set it up to be printed out.


Here it is in Pepakura,




Then you put it in Illustrator so you can fix up the cut out lines for the laser cutter.



Then you throw it back in to Rhino with all your new edges and you can finally print out your pieces.