Beau’s Large Assignment 2: Parametric Vessels

My Designs

From the outset, I wanted to see how different I could make shapes that were created from the same algorithm.  My final algorithm includes parameters spiked or flat sides, twisted layers and repeating structures.  To exemplify this I chose a series of forms that get escalating abstract. 

The first has no repeating structures, straight edges, and looks pretty much like a normal vase. 

The second I added repeating forms, twisted each layer and added indentation, it looks weirder but still vase shaped. 

The final one I doubled the number of sides, twisted the spiked sized so they’re asymmetrical, and had it repeat its shape 4 times, the end result of that one looks almost organic to me, kind of like a pine cone. This was the only one I had any real issues with. I don’t think the 3-D printer works very well with the steep slopes and overhangs.  It still successfully printed but the texture along the bottom is a lot less consistent than on the other two prints I did.

Reflection on the Parametric Design Process

As someone whose done work with clay and ceramic before there’s a lot to like about 3-D printing and programming.  The level of fine detail you can get with a 3-D printer is a lot greater, since computer generated geometry don’t have the same limitations working with your hands do.  Programming also lets you add a lot of detail for not that much work. A shape with 4 sides vs 12 isn’t that different to program for. It makes designs scalable and intricate in a way that would be extremely difficult in a more traditional 3-D art form.

There are several major downsides to 3-D printing/programming that do really grind my gears.  One is how rigid they are.  With clay you can add detail on the fly and adjust as you want.  When working with algorithm generated geometry small fluid adjustments are difficult.  The lack of physicality with digital modeling is something that makes it difficult to visualize the final form or spot mistakes.  When I’m working with clay, I know how the form is coming along because it’s in my hands, I can inspect it dynamically.  It’s hard to inspect 3-D prints before they come out because of limited camera functionality and the like 3 levels of conversion from rhino to cura to physical artifacts. So it’s not really until you have the final form printed that you know how it is truly going to look.  And that print takes hours.

I tried to leverage these advantages and disadvantages when coming up with my forms.  Algorithms do good with lots of small symmetrical changes, so I focused on repeated structures and transformation as the main ways to change the shapes.

Reflection on Creative Agency

I mostly set out with an idea on what I wanted.  I wanted my forms to be very math heavy, so I tried to think of all the ways I could have inputs affect the shape.  I used series to create repeated patterns that would scale to the size of vessel I wanted.  I made it so the twist always snaps to a line of symmetry to keep the repeating pattern motif.  I think it gives them all this weird organic look which I really dig. This also informed the series I chose because I wanted to make sure I could show off those ideas in practice. Normally when I do art I tend to do a lot of story stuff with characters and settings.  However, since I’m not someone with a lot of experience doing 3-D modeling on computer I decided to see if I work on interesting forms rather than mimicking objects in the real world. Ultimately it all sort of endeared me to the program I was coding for more than the printed product, but I am very happy with both.

My Code

I don’t yet have a good grasp on the scale most people took but I feel like mine got kind of out of hand. I wanted to hard code as little as possible so lost of variables plug into multiple other functions such as the number of repeats of a pattern, automatically scales the height of each instance of the repeating pattern. The other issue is I had lots of frustration with python so I resorted to grasshopper functions often to get what I wanted.