The software we used for this assignment is Rhinoceros 3d Grasshopper. As I have Mac IOS, I had to run Rhino Wip.
But I had a previous instance for Rhino Wip, and could not install Rhino Wip, because the Software detected I had an expired license
Finally (yesterday) I got a temporary solution for this, I got a new evaluation version of Rhino valid for 3 months. So, I can document the steps I did in order to get RhinoWip working again.
The main thing is that I had to completely uninstall Rhino from my laptop:
The following steps will completely remove Rhino for Mac from your computer:
Design and develop your grasshopper definition to create 3 Dimensional patterns to 3D print.
You can use various methods for 3D printing. Rigid structures, flexible structures, 3D printing on fabrics, 3D printing performing as fabrics
As I want to build a geodesic Dome for my final project, I want to generate the paterns for the triangles and want to do it parametrically.
The files of the design can be downloaded here
Another test was done with the Weabird plugin
But I have to do more experimentation to deploy the dome an cut the patterns
First, to be more comfortable with Grasshopper I ran into some tutorials. One of my favorites is the “tesselation”. I decided to make an hexagonal pattern changing randomly. The things you need to know:
Hexagonal cells matrix | Explode and evaluate | Random and sliders |
Boundary surface | Extrusions | Bake |
Final Bake | Cura simulation |
I found a nice webpage with some basic definitions. Here I decided start with population for replicating the same model as a pattern over a surface and change with sliders the number of the models in rows, in cols and the height of the model. I did change the model shape from torus to a truncated pyramid. I did try to change the shape of the surface but as it is considered as a matrix, I could not change the shape.
After selecting Bake on the last entity BoxMorph a dialogue box asks for the attributes. We will select Mesh and then Group.
We can render the model:
And, after downloading the stl we can 3D print it. I did print over organza because it has open fibers, but I think toullle will be better. I did try by putting the fabric over the printer bed and start printing from the beginning, but the pieces didn't stick to the fabric very much. So I was googling and found this tip: You can print some layers over the bed, then pause the printing and put the fabric between the nozzle and the 3d printed parts. Then resume the printing
This operation can be set automatically on cura , the action is called “pause at height” under avanced extensions > change gcode
We will print 2 or 3 layers over the printer bed, when the machine stops we put the fabric and press Resume printing
With the aim of learning a bit more of grasshopper, I decided to follow S-L-O-W-L-Y Aldo's third tutorial and I did this step by step process
Download: aldo_tutorial_3.pdf