I am quite a fan of rapid prototyping projects, but I’m not sure if this one qualifies. Venus is the latest project by Tokujin Yoshioka, a Japanese designer. It is a ‘Natural Crystal Chair’, the production process is so different than any other chair out there. A substrate made of polyester elastomer forms the skeleton and is submerged in a tank, here grow the crystals on that substrate.
Amazing stuff!
*relativity is an art project by Drzach & Suchy, they produced panels with the Shadow Casting Panels technique. They can ‘encode’ up to 3 images into 1 panel, by shifting the position of a light you can see the single images because the tabs on the panel cast a different shadow. As always, there is no better way to show this with some videos:
Powered by nothing but sunlight and some threads, Thomas Traxlers‘ “The idea of a tree project” shows us how objects can grow during the course of a day. The installation is powered by a couple of solar cells which power the entire device, causing the process to move faster or slower depending on the amount of available light. The speed of the process determines the amount of saturation of the thread, giving a visual recording in the resulting object. Thomas Traxler just graduated from the IM Masters department of the Design Academy Eindhoven, 2008.
found via designboom weblog
Karsten Schmidt (a.k.a. Toxi) was commissioned by PRINT Magazine to create his own generative letterforms for the August 2008 cover. He used the Gray-Scott reaction diffusion model in a Processing sketch (an open source programming language) to generate a 3D typographical model. That 3D file was then printed with a 3D printer and photographed for the cover. You can read a short interview with him at the PRINT Magazine website. In this Flickr set you can find more photos and images of the whole process.
Here is a video of an early Processing sketch, the 2D frames where later stacked to a 3D model.
found at cpluv
Xavier Veilhan did some projects together with AIR, the French band. He was responsible for the cover of ‘Pocket Symphony’, their latest album. He also made these vacuum form figurines, I really like their 3D surface.
This is the Diamond Chair by Nendo. On the first picture you can see a step in the production process, indeed it’s a rapid prototyping technique called selective laser sintering. It’s very similar to the 3D printing that Front Design used for their Sketch Furniture.
Unfortunately this technology isn’t ready for mass production yet, it takes 5 to 6 days just to print 1 chair.
More info and images at dezeen.
Here are some amazing paper / cardboard prototypes of architectual projects by Horst Kiechle; more details here.
found @ Computerlove
This 3D printing rapid prototyping technology is really taking of. Next up: food! The CandyFab Project can make any 3D shape in sugar. I can’t wait for the first french fries coming from such a printer.
found @ wired geekdad
Indeed this watch was printed with a rapid prototyping 3D printer by Frederic Hakoune. Okay, it’s actually only the casing of the watch that was printed, but still. He could print a different casing design every … You can see more pictures of the whole process in his Facebook account.
Did you ever wonder how designers and architects come up with those crazy shapes? Well, here is the answer: they script them! Yeah it’s just some math and formulas fed to 3D software like Rhinoceros. So now you know why you pay that much …
Ok, that’s a little exaggerated, but still.
This coffee table called “Polytop” by Marc Fornes is a perfect example. Every table is unique, which is easily accomplished with scripting and modern production techniques like CNC.
