NOVEDGE blog

The Edge: Brian Ringley, Embracing Design Technology.

2013-06-18T09:00:00-07:00

Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do.

Brian Ringley: I was educated as an architect but currently work as what might best be described as a design technologist. I’m the Technology Coordinator at City Tech, CUNY’s senior technology college in Brooklyn, where I manage our digital fabrication lab, which includes laser cutting, 3D printing, digitizing and 3D scanning, and CNC machining. I also oversee curriculum development in the area of computational design.

Student: Dan Otto | Faculty: Hart Marlow, Michael McCune

Novedge: What have you learned in your position at NYCCTfab? Has anything surprised you?

Brian Ringley: In architectural technology education, we’re continually revising our approach because the industry is constantly evolving. I’ve learned to embrace this constant change.

The surprises have been pleasant: the enthusiasm of the students, the dedication and commitment of the faculty, and the unbelievable support from the City Tech administration and the National Science Foundation are just a few that come to mind.

Students: Amanda Moschel, Dillon Pranger, Olia Miho

Novedge: I would like to hear more about your interest in Rococo art and current technology...

The word “Rococo” is a portmanteau of the French words for stone and seashells. I’ve always been interested in the forms found in marine life. When I was a student in Cincinnati, I picked up a copy of Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms in Nature at a local record store and was blown away by the extravagance and quality of the illustrations inside, one plate in particular showing a cluster of bivalve seashells.

Despite these drawings having been published over a century ago, they still have relevance to the contemporary algorithmic and biomimetic design work being done today with technology like CNC machining. Both Rococo sculptors and CNC machinists employ subtractive techniques in materials from sets of instructions; the former did it with sandstone, chisels, and stereotomy, while the latter do it with material composites, fluted end mills, and G-code.

Students: James Herrmann, Chris Bartell

Novedge: What are some recent projects that you worked on?

Brian Ringley: One of the most recent architecture competitions I entered was Sukkah City STL, which was St. Louis’ response to the successful Sukkah City NYC competition in 2010. A Sukkah is a temporary shelter erected during the Jewish festival of Sukkot, which commemorates the passage from the Book of Leviticus in which the Israelites wander the wilderness after their release from slavery in Egypt. My entry, titled “Haystack Sukkah,” aimed to make a uniquely Midwestern analogy between haystacks receding into the horizon and the rows of tent encampments inhabited by the Israeli nomads. Haystack Sukkah, with its s’chach (vegetative cladding) of wheat stalks, is meant to emphasize the harvest as both a gift from God and a sign of the changing seasons, ultimately reminding us of our ephemeral existence.

The entire Sukkah was to be constructed of straight members of lumber connected with lap joints which would allow for efficient material use. The angle of the members’ intersections at these joints varies about the perimeter of the structure, giving it an undulating “haystack” form which is intended to be simultaneously bucolic and elegant. Symmetry was introduced into the design to reduce the number of unique parts from 528 to ninety-two.

The design of Haystack Sukkah was actually a continuation of an idea that started with another project, called “Waterfall,” which was a coin-collecting device designed and fabricated for the University of Cincinnati’s “Proudly Pennies” campaign, which was a drive to collect one billion pennies as part of the university’s push to reach the $1 billion endowment mark. Like Haystack, the project relied on undulating lap joints but each member was comprised of two polycarbonate members sandwiched together, one 1/8” thick and flush, the other 1/4'” thick with a channel routed into the back to allow for coins to slide Plinko-style down the plastic chutes.

I’m also currently involved with curating and fabricating an annual exhibition with the City Tech AEC technology symposium “Intersections,” which looks at connections between design pedagogy and practice. Last year the work was largely invited, and I had the pleasure of toolpathing and machining pieces designed by Francis Bitonti and Marius Watz. This year the exhibition focused exclusively on student work from City Tech courses.

Collection of work in course by Hart Marlow and Michael McCune

Novedge: What software do you use?

Brian Ringley: I use all sorts of software, but my mainstay has always been Rhino. I love Rhino for its accessibility to young students and CAD novices. In contrast to other modelers with easy-to-learn UIs (SketchUp comes to mind), Rhino is the best choice to ensure that users understand core modeling concepts and geometry properties which are the key to developing digital craft. A strong foundation in Rhino allows the user to more easily transition into its extensions (Grasshopper, RhinoScript, etc.) but also into modelers with higher learning curves like Maya, SolidWorks, and Digital Project. An extensive collection of Rhino plug-ins also allows users to modify Rhino for practically any task: T-Splines and Weaverbird for subdivision surface modeling, RhinoCAM for CNC toolpathing, V-Ray for visualization, RhinoNest for efficient parts layouts in sheet stock – the list goes on and on.

My high school was an authorized Rhino training center and last autumn I went out to the McNeel offices in Seattle to become an authorized Rhino trainer so, if nothing else, I’m extremely familiar with the product.

Students: August Miller, Bryan Sistino, Todd Ebeltoft

Novedge: How does teaching inform your art practice and vice versa?

Brian Ringley: I love to be wrong – that probably sounds weird, but there’s nothing worse for an artist or designer than getting comfortable with a bad idea and repeating it over and over again. Because they are new to the information and the technology, students have questions. Students questions, unburdened by the assumptions of the profession, are great for pointing out and otherwise exposing flaws in how educators think, so there’s no better way to stay in design shape, so to speak, than by running the gamut of the classroom.

Students: Austin Weller, Brian Turcza, Trevor Jordan, YoonJin Kim

Novedge: What advice would you give to people looking into going to college to study architecture?

Brian Ringley:

1. Be willing to do something else.

2. Embrace technology and rapid change.

3. Take the risk of production.

4. Maintain a sense of humor.

Brian is a contributor at AEC-APPS and Designalyze.

The Edge: The Sanchez Code

2013-06-14T09:00:00-07:00

Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do

Jose Sanchez: Well, my name is Jose Sanchez, I’m a Chilean architect. I graduated from the Design Research Lab (DRL) at the Architectural Association. During that period, I started focusing on a generative design agenda, using coding as the main means for design. My research dealt with swarm systems and emergent tectonics in constant search for equilibrium. As soon as I graduated, I started teaching processing within the DRL and assisting Alisa Andrasek, who was my tutor during my Master's, in her practice Biothing. I spent 3 years working at the front of the computation within the practice, dealing with architectural projects of different scales. In 2012, I decided to leave the practice and start a collaboration with Alisa with the Bloom Project for the London Olympics. Since then, I have been conducting my own Research Unit in the Graduate Architectural Design (GAD) program of the Bartlett School of Architecture in UCL and developing my practice, The Plethora Project.

Plethora-Project from Jose Sanchez on Vimeo.

Novedge: What is The Plethora Project?

Jose Sanchez: Once I started teaching, I was surprised at the little amount of resources that Academia had to teach something like code, at least for architects. I had to spend a lot of time finding the right material and making sense of scattered pieces of information found on the internet. In this regard, initiatives like the open-source movement and video sites like the Khan Academy or Academic Earth were a big inspiration to start a teaching protocol that I continue to this day. I call this protocol the Plethora-Project, it documents every step of teaching that I have done through the years. A place to make accessible to other the sometimes laborious work of making sense of some material. In a way it was something that I wish I had when I was learning, so I decided to start building it myself. Today the Plethora Project has over 150 videos of computational knowledge, from programming tutorials, to modeling and rendering.

In 2010 I realized that the videos where not enough and that it was time to take the next step, which for me was writing a library of code. In a way, a library allows others to access some functionality and knowledge in a faster way.

PLIBS LIBRARY EXAMPLES from Jose Sanchez on Vimeo.

The Plethora Library for Processing has been growing slowly, but it sits within a larger framework of open source tools that many professionals like myself are sharing today over the internet.

Novedge: What are some recent projects that you worked on?

Jose Sanchez: In a way, the Bloom project has been a turning point in my career. It's with this project that I decided to pursue in a much stronger way an agenda that deals with architecture and games.

Bloom was an installation for the 2012 London Olympics competition that Alisa and I won over several stages of judging. The project suggests an interactive pavilion made out of thousands of identical units that could be assembled by people in order to create different formations.

Bloom was installed in 3 different locations during the London Olympics: Victoria Park, Greenwich and UCL main Quad. The initial formation invited people to play and participate altering and building new structures. Every user, including the Bloom team, had to learn how to ‘PLAY’, as no blueprints were present at the moment of construction. The rules of the structure become self-evident at the moment of iteration and improvisation. The formations were created live outside the realm of simulated forecasts, but within a notion of contingent adaptations.

Bloom became an educational game. Encouraging people to work together to create all sorts of structures. People soon realized that by following "recipes" or sequences, they could repeat formations and discover hidden patterns. Rhythmicity created loops, and logic allowed kids to create solid structures. The game mechanics designed into the project enabled the local adaptation of the piece, allowing for contingent formations in every site. In this context, Bloom became a social experiment on the use of game logics as a crowd-source medium of adaptation.

We designed the project using Processing and Rhino. The initial sketches where done in processing but we soon needed to strengthen the geometrical platform to deal with fabrication.

The Computation of Bloom from Jose Sanchez on Vimeo.

We scripted our tools in Python within Grasshopper to be able to see in real-time the potential variations of the unit, and at the same time see the result of the recursive aggregation unfolding. This workflow allowed us to determine the main angles that would be used for the piece. This was the moment in which we started collaborating with Manja van de Worp from Arup to define the structural capacities of the piece. We iterated many times that the unit as the whole project was dealing with only one design. Additionally, we designed the component to work as urban furniture arraying the unit through a helicoidally bent steel structure. This "bench" would work as the main support for the more intuitive formations done with the over 60.000 units we manufactured.

Credits: Bloom, Jose Sanchez and Alisa Andrasek.

The project presents a central thesis of how game mechanics could become a tool for crowdsourcing design. It is in that context that the project allowed me to start the "gamescapes" research in the GAD in UCL. I have been working closely with a small group of students developing research on the connection between architecture and games. The studio suggests games as a design heuristics looking at how to create models of man-computer symbiosis where the designer, coupled with algorithmic intelligence, can "play" in order to design different outputs. The studio is reaching the end of its first iteration and all games and experiments can be accessed for free here.

Credits: Wireflies, research project by Iro Karantaki, Dimitra Angelopoulou and Vassia Diamanti within ‘Gamescapes’ at Bartlett UCL. Tutor: Jose Sanchez

Additionally, I’m developing an architectural video game soon to be released, but I cannot show any material yet as it’s still a work in progress.

Novedge: What software do you use?

Jose Sanchez: I constantly migrate from one software to another, I feel that most platforms offer something different but I try to give more importance to learning what doesn’t change from one software to another, like geometry or math. It’s quite easy to learn the interface of a new software if you understand the key geometrical concepts that you are operating with. For instance, knowing what to expect from a Nurbs model versus a Mesh is something that I keep repeating to students. The same applies to scripting. The syntax of a new scripting language is not difficult to learn, what is important is to understand the different paradigms behind each language.

Having said this, I spent a lot of time in Processing and Rhino. Both modelling and scripting. Grasshopper is also a great tool that I use a lot, but I really enjoy having a run time environment like Processing. I feel that coding allows me to accumulate the knowledge of a project in a more consistent way. The concepts of inheritance and encapsulation from object-oriented programming I feel are key to developing a more sustainable design practice.

Lately I have migrated to Unity3D. I feel really happy with the platform. The welcome the ability to distribute and communicate some of the ideas behind generative design with a much larger community. I feel that sometimes our discipline becomes quite obscure and starts using a vocabulary that hides or pretends the actual processes we are dealing with. This is what I describe as obscurantism in design practices. I’m strongly against it. This is why both my practice and teaching have been developed around ideas of open source.

BLOOM PLAY from Jose Sanchez on Vimeo.

Novedge: Your practice combines different disciplines. How do they inform each other? How important are collaborations and team work?

Jose Sanchez: I truly believe that the boundaries of what we consider traditional disciplines are starting to blur and we are seeing more and more professionals that operate in an ‘in-between’ space. That is why I decided to organize a monthly event called the Bartlett Nexus trying to wire together some of the individuals that are often collaborating via open source projects but don’t know each other. In this scenario, collaborations do not happen in the way of bringing in a specialist from another field but rather work by implementing and hybridizing the material that each one of the individuals participating is already sharing online. I see this landscape of designers with their own set of open-source tools as a completely new framework for collaboration, where much smaller practices can strategically scale or tackle complex projects.

Today, a format like the Meet Up is starting to become a strong form of collaboration and perpetual learning strategy, challenging traditional models of practice and research. We are seeing a proliferation of tools, games and software being developed by skilled individuals that are wired in new ways. This is an exciting time to develop a practice that can both develop new projects from some of the accumulated resources within the community, and share the progress or tools developed with them.

You can see more of Jose's work at the Plethora Project's website or follow him on Twitter.

And here are some creations made playing Bloom.

Do you know someone I should interview? Send Novedge a tweet!

Novedge Webinar #74: Q&A with Francesc Salla - Workflow and Architectural Design with VisualARQ for Rhino

2013-06-13T09:00:00-07:00

Time to catch up with our latest webinar. Last week, Francesc Salla guided us through VisualARQ for Rhino, and answered quite a few questions live. As time ran out, he agreed to answer the rest here on our blog. Enjoy.

Q: How much does the VisualARQ plug-in cost for student users?

A: The single educational license costs $95 and there is also LAB licenses for schools for $675.

[Editor's Note: prices at Novedge are lower, check our website for the latest pricing information]

Q: Francesc, for the dimensions, sections or plans made in your demonstration, do the drawings and dimensions update automatically?

A: The Section and Elevation Views, Opening Elevations, Schedule Tables and Spaces Areas update automatically or after selecting them and running the update command. Only the 2D Plan Views don’t update, although we are planning to change that in future versions.

Q: I've been playing with your implementation of VisualARQ in Grasshopper. It is a terrific start and I think why VisualARQ has so much power and potential --- great job --- can you address your plans or vision for VisualARQ? Where is it going? What do you want it to be? At the moment, it has so much potential and it is simple and elegant.

A: That's a question we ask ourselves at each release. As you may know we release a new VA version every three months or so. We basically focus the VisualARQ development on the users requests. So your ideas and suggestions are really welcome. Next big thing we are planning to do is the IFC import and object styles driven by Grasshopper definitions.

Q: Can you address when or if VisualARQ will be able to import IFC models?

A: This is something we are working on. It currently imports geometry from the IFC model but still not as Architectural objects, but plain Rhino geometry.

Q: Are the tables exportable as CSV files?

A: Sure, you can export them to CSV and Excel.

Q: It would be awesome if the Dynamic Section Tool was implemented in Grasshopper because then you could animate it with a slider. What do you think?

A: We will study your request and will consider whether to develop it in the future.

Q: Can you make your own objects? Is it possible to add properties/attributes to the components (e.g. thermal properties, price, etc.) and are these properties exportable as IFC models?

A: Not right now, but that’s something at the top of the wish list and we will work on it soon.

Q: Space and documentation commands are really interesting. Are these commands available from Grasshopper and/or exportable rather than viewed in the viewport?

A: We have just released the first WIP version of the VisualARQ Grasshopper Components, and there is still much to do. We are planning to include the option to create Spaces and Tables from Grasshopper in future releases. The tables created in VisualARQ are exportable into Excel.

Q: How much information is exported with an IFC-file? Are notes, names etc. exported as well?

A: Everything that you can enter in the UI and have a representation in IFC is exported.

Q: Thank you for a great webinar. I am looking forward to see a two-way integration with IFC. Excellent job with adding Grasshopper plug-ins.

A: Thank you. As mentioned previously, we are already working in the IFC import and we will keep on improving the current IFC export as well.

Q: Can we create interaction rendering with the Cutting Plane - like the one on your [VisualARQ] website? We'd like to slide the planes and see in to the house.

A: Not in the product, we use an in-house script to do it. But why not, it can be made public. By the way, you can run renders of the model with the Dynamic Section on.

Q: What is the integrity of the model/surfaces like? I am interested in workflow for 3D printing.

A: VisualARQ generates solids, I mean all the geometry it generates is closed poly surfaces, except for glasses in windows, which are actually single surfaces. But we have no way to ensure things have a minimum width or things like that, in order to guarantee that the model is printable in 3D. Of course a VisualARQ model can become a 3D printable model after some work on it.

Q: Will two meeting walls create one solid poly surface?

A: No, but it doesn't sound like something difficult to do if it is useful for 3D printing.

Q: In Rhinoceros 4 the V-Ray 1.x mats seems to work. What about Rhinoceros 5, V-Ray 1.6 and VisualARQ?

A: VisualARQ supports the same render engines than Rhino. That means that you can apply V-Ray 1-6 materials on VisualARQ objects. But sometimes they need to be exploded if you want to apply texture mappings on them, since texture mapping doesn’t work on Rhino blocks, and VisualARQ objects are actually blocks.

Q: Hi Francesc. Your examples are purely VisualARQ objects. What kind of files do we need to show and work with both furniture and lighting? Do they have to be .3DS file types?

A: Since VisualARQ runs on top of Rhino you can use any file format Rhino supports to work with your furniture blocks, for example DWG, SKP, 3DS, OBJ, and many others. They will all appear in Section, Plan Views, etc…

Q: We export parts (number, volume, height, lengths of booth systems) to Excel directly out of Rhino. Is it possible to do this with VisualARQ?

A: Yes, you can do that as long as the booth systems are created with VisualARQ objects. In future versions we are planning to quantify also Rhino geometry and export it into Excel.

Q: Hi Francesc, we use VisualARQ for booth-design in architecture, the slabs define the level manager and level views. Now we use srf to define the level views. Is there a better way?

A: The level manager helps you to work at different levels, either if there is a slab or surface there or if there isn’t. Just take into account that when you create a new level, you are also creating a construction plane on that level elevation, which helps you to easily switch from construction plane to another. The Level Manager also is meant to provide a 2D graphical representation of the level you create.

Q: So great! I would like to know if "extending" the wall to a slab for example creates a link in Revit too? For a structural analysis it is necessary to have these connections.

A: The walls extended to objects, once imported into Revit, lose their association. We will fix that in future versions.

Q: VisualARQ is slowly becoming a robust design tool for architecture. There are however several features in VisualARQ that do not function properly. For example, the ability to render the wall objects with different materials (even though the properties dialog gives options for doing so.) Also, blocks (such as fixtures and appliances) have to be exploded, otherwise these will not show up in VisualARQ generated drawings. I think solving these basic problems will be much more important than adding new features such as Grasshopper integration.

A: You are right, we'll make a note of that. We are planning to add the option to assign different render materials to wall components in VisualARQ 1.8. Blocks in VisualARQ drawings should appear. Only block references that are inserted as “block definition type = linked” are not displayed. We have even added recently the option to display meshes in VisualARQ Section and Plan Views.

Q: Hello! Is there a way to control the number of decimals places in the area calculation?

A: Thanks for your question, I guess it is a bug.

Q: To expand on my question, is it possible to create a dynamic dimensioned plan that updates with the model?

A: Not right now, but it is something on the list.

Q: Will the documentation tools (plans, sections, etc) incorporate non-VisualARQ created objects? Will plans and sections be cut through geometry created with other Rhino commands?

A: VisualARQ Section drawings and Plan Views work with any kind of geometry, not only VisualARQ objects.

Q: Is it possible to read the styles (wall, window, etc) created in Rhino with VisualARQ into Grasshopper or do they need to be recreated?

A: The VisualARQ objects created from Grasshopper can get any existing object style from that document you are working on. But the styles can’t be created from Grasshopper . I recommend you open a VisualARQ template in order to have all the styles available in Grasshopper. Otherwise, you can import styles from file using _vaStylesImport command.

Q: In perspective or iso viewport does the Rhino grid disappear or can it be set to be seen?

A: There is a setting that can be configured per display mode in Rhino. If you would prefer, Rhino can display the grid over objects.

Q: Can you select just the glass portion of the window in Grasshopper? I am interested in linking this with Ecotect through the Geco plug in, and all of the different materials need to be assigned individually.

A: Not right now. But it will be soon. We will integrate a component in GH which will explode any VisualARQ object into their parts. That way you will be able to select the window glass surfaces individually for any purpose.

Q: Good Afternoon, Mr. Salla! Can we create a slab with a double curvature? Is it possible with the VisualARQ plug-in for Grasshopper?

A: I'm sorry but not right now, since slabs in VisualARQ are generated like planar contour curves extruded vertically. Just create this slab (polysurface) using Rhino tools.

Q: Hi, can we UV map VisualARQ objects? I couldn't do it without exploding them.

A: Since VisualARQ objects are blocks, and Rhino does not support texture mapping on blocks, you need to explode them in order to apply texture mapping. We are studying different ways to improve that in the future.

The Edge: 3D Printed Mobiles by Marco Mahler and Henry Segerman

2013-06-11T09:00:00-07:00

Novedge: Marco and Henry, tell us a bit about who you are and what you do

Marco Mahler: I'm a kinetic sculptor specializing in mobiles. I've made handmade mobiles on and off for about 13 years. I currently live in Portland, Oregon, with my wife and our two boys.

Henry Segerman: I'm a research fellow in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne, although I will soon be moving to Oklahoma State University to start a permanent position as an assistant professor. I split my time between research in 3-dimensional geometry and topology, and mathematical art, which for me usually involves 3D printed sculpture.

Novedge: How did you two come together? What makes your collaboration successful?

Henry Segerman: We met on Twitter. I had asked the internet about a motor for driving a sculpture (since completed), and we got talking about 3D printing and mobiles. It seems that nobody had thought to explore that combination before!
We have complementary skills to bring to the project - Marco has a lot of experience in what can be done with conventional mobiles and knowledge of the market, and I know a lot about the technicalities of designing for 3D printing.

Marco Mahler: I used to program 3-dimensional animations in (Turbo) Pascal, and wrote algorithmic stock trading strategies and custom indicators for financial charts for a while. So creating 3D models of mobiles and constructing them with scripts wasn't a huge stretch for me. But Henry's knowledge and experience put me on the fast track to adapt my prior programming skills to creating mobiles with the help of scripts and to learn about 3D printing sculptures in general which I hadn't done before this.

Mobile 4.1

Novedge: What is the inspiration behind your /mobiles/?

Marco Mahler: The mobiles made of beams, Mobile 4.1, 4.2, 8 and 9, came from thinking about their basic structures. What can be done with a set of beams? How will it balance? What if we introduce an additional variable such as an angle or a length increase that changes from one beam to the next?

Mobile 4.2

Henry Segerman: The "tree" mobiles came from a design I made in Second Life in 2008. I switched from virtual designs to 3D printed designs around 2009, but I hadn't tried to 3D print something like the tree because the thinnest parts would be very fragile. As a mobile though it works well - because the whole object moves and flexes there are no rigid joints to act as weak points.

Mobile 8

Mobile 9

Marco Mahler: Mobile 81 is based on a custom-made 10 foot (3 meter) metal mobile I made a couple of years ago. Mobile 1 and Mobile 60 are also based on mobiles I've previously made by hand. They're more conventional in design, not unlike the ones made by Alexander Calder, inventor of modern mobiles.

Mobile 81

Novedge: What software do you use to design your work and to prepare your files for 3D printing?

Henry Segerman: I use Rhinoceros as my main 3D software, together with its python scripting interface. Rhino has good support for NURBS modelling, and so it feels somewhat like a 3D version of Adobe Illustrator, another piece of software I'm familiar with. I particularly like the way you can use Rhino to make "ruler and compass" style constructions, building something up by intersecting arcs with surfaces to find new points and so on. It has a very mathematical geometric feel to it. There are various other technical resources I use, such as netfabb for repairing meshes and OpenFlipper for reducing polygon counts in large
models.

Marco Mahler: I started out with Blender and then moved to Rhino. I find it very user friendly while offering a wide range of options. The python scripting language is quite easy to adapt to if you have prior programming experience, and it's a lot of fun to play around with.

Novedge: How do research and music inform your art practice and vice versa?

Henry Segerman: For me there is some cross-over, but perhaps not as much as you might expect. My research is visual in many ways, but is usually more topological than geometric, and you really need precise geometry to be able to tell the computer to 3D print something. However, the more basic, foundational concepts can be turned into sculpture. Many of the sculptures I make come from talking with other mathematicians and working out how to turn their ideas into physical objects.

Marco Mahler: To me both music and mobiles are about dynamics and structure. The different parts depend on each other to make the whole thing work. I haven't done much with music for a while now, but I listen to music a lot while designing and making mobiles.

Mobile 60

Novedge: What other projects are you working on?

Henry Segerman: Right now, I'm working on color versions of many of my sculptures for MoMath, the Museum of Mathematics in NYC. Also, my YouTube channel has all of my recent completed projects.

Seifert surface for (3,3) torus link

Symmetric figure 8 knot

Juggling club motion

Marco Mahler: I've been busy with my kinetic sculptures and a line of mobiles made with laser cut sheet metal pieces. Part of my time is currently taken up with moving back to the East Coast. I'm planning on looking into additional ways to market and sell these 3D printed mobiles and to work on expanding our collection. I'm very excited to explore and see what other new mobile designs we'll come up with, especially designs that would not be possible to make by hand!

See more of Marco and Henry's amazing 3D printed mobiles here and order your own at Shapeways.

The Edge: In Norbert Geelen's Seat

2013-06-07T09:00:00-07:00

Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do

Norbert Geelen: I am an Industrial Designer.
After having completed my studies at the University of Essen, I started freelancing at Studio Matteo Thun in Milan/Italy.
Together with Robert Kilders, I founded the design studio bert&bert in 1997.
Since 2005 I have been working on my own as Norbert Geelen Industrial Design based both in my German office in Straelen and in my Milan studio.
Though I have designed a wide variety of distinct products, I have specialized in contract and office furniture design, mainly high-quality seating and tables.

Novedge: What has been your biggest inspiration and what keeps you inspired?
Norbert Geelen: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell once said “The ultimate inspiration is the deadline” and I can totally relate to that. I believe that only the pressure of time running out, the sense of aggregation and concentration when you are forced to get to the core of the matter can really trigger the creative momentum. After all, creativity was born as a human's answer to jeopardy, threat, danger.
While we don't need it to fight existential threats anymore (or maybe we do, but that's another story) it still needs stress and exitement to emerge.

Of course that doesn't mean there is no need for all kinds of creative input: like everybody else I am constantly looking for every information I can get hold of about interesting projects in all creative disciplines: other product designers' work, fashion, movies, technology, science, art, crafts, literature etc. and just about anything that stimulates my curiosity.

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?
Norbert Geelen: During the last two years I worked on two major projects for Kusch+Co, a German producer of contract and office furniture.
These two products are Volpino, a range of plastic shell armchairs and São Paulo, a series of task- and conference- swivel chairs and its respective partner chairs.

Volpino is a series of small armchairs based on a polypropylene seat shell. The design is conceived as the “little brother” of Volpe, a fully upholstered armchair I designed for Kush+Co a couple of years ago. The attachment scheme of the different bases however is taken from the series uni_verso, a multi purpose chair and another project of mine for Kusch+Co. Beyond the obvious logistical advantages of this “shared platform” strategy, these series and a matching table range grow together to one large “patchwork family” where mixing and matching different products from different lines becomes natural and logical.
On the other hand, adapting the sinuous seat shell to an existing seat base without compromising its organic, sensual and friendly character was the main sculptural challenge of this project.

As my other projects for Kusch+Co had established a sensual, slightly curved design vocabulary, this new task chair range I was commissioned to develop, São Paulo, followed the same language. But architects and planners who usually decide about the acquisition of office furniture have a traditional predilection for “minimalist”, linear, austere designs. So the goal in the creation of the São Paulo line was to adhere to sinuous, flowing shapes, proving at the same time that this can result in a clean, essential and simple product.

To do so, I chose a clear cut, simple silhouette for the backrest frame that is slightly pointed at the top. Its cross-section consists of two curves and has only two (rounded) corners.
Therefore the resulting volumes consist not of flat, but only convex surfaces. All transitions are carried out as curvature continuous blends. All surfaces were modeled using class A, single span surfacing techniques. The same was applied to all the main components and produced the desired organic, almost “liquid” look.
The net material, as well as the cushioned back, are neatly and tightly fitted into the back frame structure, virtually merging them to one unified element.
All controls are incorporated flush into the lower seat base.
No protruding knobs or levers are disturbing the integrated, homogeneous look.
The result is as simple as a high performing, ergonomic swivel chair can get. Yet it stays true to a distinct, sensual, continuously flowing and organic expression.

Novedge: Can you talk about your process in creating these pieces?
Norbert Geelen: I hardly ever approach a new client with a complete design.
I prefer to first get to know as much as possible about the company, its production facilities, suppliers, history, competition, its self perception and how it's perceived by others etc.
In short: I need to understand the context of the company and its products.
It may sound very academic, but it's not like filling out a spreadsheet but more of an intuitive process, an immersion into the clients world.
This leads to a briefing or sometimes just a loose “design mission” and I start to develop my first design proposals. If possible, I try to avoid big "milestone" presentations, instead I prefer a frequent steady communication, a constant exchange of proposals and ideas.
Ideally this works like a ping-pong game: I “serve” an idea into the client's field and they hit it back to me, thus provoking my next reaction and so forth.
It is a very fluid, organic process with at times unpredictable outcome and sometimes, if necessary, the briefing or design mission can completely change during this stage.

Once the product concept has emerged or “solidified”, the parameters for the industrialization of the design will be defined in close cooperation with engineers and/or third party suppliers. This phase is often decisive for the end result and I cannot stress enough how important it is for the designer to get involved in this thoroughly.
Therefore, apart from an understanding of manufacturing cycles, the quality of CAD files I produce and transmit to engineers and the ability to work with 3D exchange file formats I get back from them becomes really important.
Usually I try to define all design related (visible or touchable to the user) surfaces including the main draft angles, ribs etc. These surfaces then serve as reference or will be directly integrated into the construction CAD/CAM files created for tooling or other production processes.

Novedge: Do you have a "design philosophy"?

Norbert Geelen: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Albert Einstein (supposedly) once said. I love this quote as a guideline to design, because it seems a strict rule, but at the same time leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
It describes a distinct way of thinking, but it’s not dogmatic about how to implement it.
I understand the wish for simplicity in design as the aim to communicate clearly: take away the unnecessary, the distracting bits, but don't cut to the flesh, don't touch the substance, the meaningful parts.
It is not about reduction to the minimum which to me is a form of impoverishment.
It is, quite the opposite, an enrichment of content by means of concentration and purification: a process of “distillation”.
At the end of this process the product will have more character, more impact and more expression than before.

Novedge: What software do you use?
Norbert Geelen: Maybe it is because I am somewhat of a geek for CAD and 3D software in general that I am always looking out for new additions to my modeling/visualization workflow.
Therefore my software setup and workflow are in constant evolution.
But there is one constant element that forms my CAD “software hub” that other tools relate to, and that is Rhino 3D.
I love the possibility to enhance its already impressive feature set by scripts and plugins.
An example for this would be Autodesk's T-Splines plugin that bridges the gap between subdivision- and nurbs-surfaces. This is perfect for quick preliminary CAD sketches and the modeling of "non engineered”, soft surfaces, as for instance upholstery.
Another important extension in modeling functionality is Virtual Shape Research's VSR Shape Modeling plug-in which greatly enhances Rhino's surfacing abilities focusing on the creation and manipulation of automative quality Class A surfaces.
It is still a fairly young product, new tools and functions are added constantly and the developers are very responsive.
I heavily relied on the combination of Rhino and VSR for the creation of the aforementioned São Paulo line of task- conference- and partner chairs.

Novedge: If you could go back in time, what would you say to your younger self before embarking in your current career?
Norbert Geelen: “Do or do not… there is no try.” Yoda

Novedge: What innovations do you see in your field now or in the future?
Norbert Geelen: As I find it hard to make meaningful predictions in a fast-changing world, I will limit myself to talk about current innovations which obviously should give a hint of what will happen in the near future too.
Through the wide accessibility and affordability of modern CAD tools, a level of complexity and sophistication of the product development process once exclusive to large multinational corporations like the automotive sector has trickled down into all kinds of industries.
The requirements for high quality surfacing is spreading into more and more fields of consumer products.
Rapid prototyping is replacing traditional model-making on a large scale.
This obviously affects the work of industrial and product designers:.
While it has never been as easy and cheap to equip yourself with powerful hardware and software to tackle these challenges, the technical requirements of a designer's skills are more demanding than ever:
high quality 3D CAD modeling and file exchange, a deep understanding and consideration of the production processes, the ability to flexibly collaborate and communicate with experts of ever more disciplines, to name a few.
These may only be extensions to the qualifications and abilities always requested from designers, but the technical standard is surely rising
And this may not affect all industrial designers yet, but it applies to more and more of them.
Be prepared and you will have a profound degree of influence and control of your design and all its facets. Ignore the changes and someone else will make these decisions for you.

See all of Norbert's work on his website.

Are you a Rhino user? Join Rhino Jungle, the online community for all users and fans of the McNeel products, plug-ins, and complementary products.

The Edge: Andrei Hakhovich Branches Out

2013-06-04T09:00:00-07:00

Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do

Andrei Hakhovich: I’m Andrei Hakhovich, a designer and founder of Gradient Matter, a design and applied-research studio. My design agenda and research interests lay in materiality research and spatial constructs that have an impact on the users, built with the sensorial, public and ecological environmental as a focus. I was born and raised in Minsk, Belarus and have dual educational background in both architecture and engineering. I received my BS in Civil Engineering from Belarusian National Technic University and my Master's Degree in Architecture from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Prior to establishing my own practice, I’ve worked at a number of prominent offices as an architect, interior designer and innovative façade consultant.

Novedge: What is it like to work at the Tech Shop?

Andrei Hakhovich: Techshop is a great dynamic prototyping environment. There is a very rich cross-disciplinary crowd of members that work at the Techshop. I’m always curious to see new and unexpected takes on problem-solving that come from makers and designers who are different from me. At the California College of the Arts I had the opportunity to take many courses and establish connections with other departments like furniture/industrial and interaction design. Techshop is very similar in that regard. People who go there range from science engineers to hobbyists and you never know who you will meet next. It is very motivating to see people working in so many different scales from small objects to large public art installations. I always keep an eye and exchange contacts with people who are great in areas that are outside of my expertise.

Novedge: Where do you find inspiration for your work?

Andrei Hakhovich: Daly urban life and natural processes are the biggest inspirations for me. Designers can learn a lot from other disciplines like biology, material science, and mechanical engineering.

Novedge: What are some recent projects that you worked on?

Andrei Hakhovich: My latest project is called Vorticity, which is a large scale interior installation for the office of Transparent House, a creative digital agency which is located downtown San Francisco. The installation operates under the guise of perception through the altering of one’s awareness via modes of reflection, integration, and repositioning. The installation focuses the gallery visitors' attention on three main display screens that highlight the work of Transparent House. As you move around the room you capture glimpses of change, reflecting light under different angles, transforming the spectrum as it bounces through the smoky panels. The staggered panels twist and turn around the LCD screens expressing movement and dislocation, fragments of the masonry wall behind promenade their way through the installation, at moments revealed, sometimes hidden. The installation allowed me to test some of the ideas that I’m currently developing for a future architectural project

Branching Table – custom digitally fabricated coffee table that pushes CNC fabrication and joints research

Fiberglass composite building façade components (in collaboration with Bret Walters)

Novedge: What software do you use?

Andrei Hakhovich: I use a combination of Rhino, Grasshopper and V-Ray.

Rhino is a very versatile and affordable 3D platform that can be extended through additional plugins. I like the intuitive interface. McNeel came a long way in developing the latest version, which is capable of producing drawings, quick study rendering and animation, as well as fabrication output. I use grasshopper heavily, a plug-in which converts Rhino into fully parametric software.

Novedge: What matters to you the most in design?

Andrei Hakhovich: The ability to explore, innovate and understand the world around me through challenging myself.

Novedge: What innovations do you find most exciting in your field?

Andrei Hakhovich: I think innovation in material research and fabrication methods are the most fascinating, and will be able to radically transform the discipline of design and architecture, especially super lightweight composites and materials that generate energy, communicate and store information.

To see more of Andrei's work, check out his website.

And don't forget to become a fan of Novedge on Facebook!

The Edge: The Neolucida's Way of Seeing

2013-05-31T09:00:00-07:00

The NeoLucida sold out on Kickstarter. If you haven't heard about it yet, today we talk to one of its creators, Pablo Garcia, about the inspiration behind it and his hopes for the future.

Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you and Golan are and what you do

Pablo Garcia: I am Assistant Professor in the Department of Contemporary Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Golan Levin is Associate Professor of Computation Arts at Carnegie Mellon University.

Pablo Garcia

Golan Levin

Novedge: Why bring back the camera lucida now? Why design a new portable camera lucida?

Pablo Garcia: We came at this project from a few angles. We both work in a contemporary art and design world, where the relationship between technology and our craft is a necessary component of our work. We also have deep interests in the misunderstood or under-appreciated historical connections between art and technology. The computer and high tech tools are only the most recent developments in a long-standing dialogue between technology and art. But to have this conversation—to expose artists and designers to technology from the past—people have to have access to the tools from the past. It's one thing to read about a machine from 1800; a very different thing to use a machine from 1800. But the camera lucida, as important as it is to the history of art, is rare now. It's a vintage collectible, fetching $300-400 on eBay. This prevents the average art student from rolling up their sleeves and trying it out. So we set out to make an affordable—yet authentic—camera lucida.

We also have students who think drawing using mechanical or optical devices is "cheating." That the purity of drawing by eye is the most important thing. It ignores the long standing connection between art, science, and technology. Putting the NeoLucida in the hands of as many students as possible will hopefully foster an informed conversation about this "purity myth."

David Hockney's book Secret Knowledge generated an intense debate about the Old Masters and their access to optical tools to aid their art. Like our students, some very expert historians refuted the theory on the grounds of "cheating" or belittling the magical powers of art's greatest figures. While we are supporters of Hockney and his thesis based on personal experience, if we put the NeoLucida in a lot of hands, people can start to draw conclusions for themselves about how past artists used technology and how they may have seen the world.

All of these are motivations for bringing the camera lucida back. All in all, it's about empowering an entire community of artists, designers, scientists, makers, and students of all ages to investigate an new way of seeing. Even though that way of seeing is actually almost 200 years old.

Novedge: Who are some of the artists who have used such technology that have inspired you, or that inspire you at the moment?

Pablo Garcia: Any artist who used a camera lucida as part of their everyday practice is long dead. Some artists in recent years may have used one, but there isn't much record of it. Andy Warhol, in working on his pop icons of food used actual projectors—not a camera lucida, but a tracing method akin to the prismatic effects of the 200 year old tool. David Hockney used a camera lucida for his investigations into older drawing methods, but it isn't clear that he is using the camera lucida in his art practice.

From the past, I have seen wonderful examples of camera lucida drawings. The scientific illustrations of the early 19th century are particularly amazing, enabled by the copying potential of the camera lucida. James Audubon's son reduced his father's original gigantic bird illustrations to prepare a smaller version of Birds of America. I have also been a longtime admirer of archaeological renderings, like those by Frederick Catherwood. Super gorgeous details. And although speculative, the fine pencil work of Ingres and of Christen Købke are among the finest in the world (it is unclear whether they used a camera lucida, but there is evidence suggesting they did). To me, the master is Sir John Herschel. A famous astronomer, he was an outstanding art talent as well. He used his camera lucida to make renderings of his travels as he built observatories for King and Empire in the mid 1800s. I own two books of his drawings and treasure their amazing skill. See more about some historical examples on our NeoLucida page.

Novedge: Pablo, your work is a constant dialogue between the latest technologies and what we consider "classical" art. How did you become interested in this topic? What fascinates you about it?

Pablo Garcia: Part of this obsession perhaps comes from my age. I was born in an analog time, and it wasn't until college—when the World Wide Web debuted and email became a thing you had—that I was introduced to digital life. I was not an "early adopter" as some friends were. I didn't build my own computer or learn about coding at a young age. I drew with a pencil and if I wanted to make something, it was by hand. College and Grad School exposed me to digital tech and I became fascinated by the similarities and differences to older techniques; I was myself adjusting to new methods. I also have a deep fondness for learning about history. So maybe it's an inevitable collision to put the past and the present together.

Novedge: How does teaching inform your art practice and vice versa?

Pablo Garcia: There's no better way to learn than to teach. It keeps me fresh and near students and adults who are always making and thinking. It keeps me from stagnating and perpetually gives me fodder for new project ideas.

Novedge: How do Artists measure success?

Pablo Garcia: I have no idea. A runaway Kickstarter success is but a tiny confirmation that we have made something successful. I'll let you know if I ever feel complete success.

Would you to read more about the NeoLucida? Check the official website and Kickstarter page.

See more of Pablo's and Golan's work on their websites here and here.

Are you on Twitter? Don't forget to follow Novedge.

Generation Z's Coming!

2013-05-30T09:00:00-07:00

Last month we had the pleasure to sponsor the Industrial Technology High School Skills Competition from Iowa Central Community College. It's always great to be able to help young people pursue their passions and today we ask Jacob Sunderland a bit about himself. Jacob won first prize in the 2D CAD category.

Novedge: Tell us a bit about yourself

Jacob Sunderland: My name is Jacob Sunderland and I am a senior at Southeast Polk High School and I am going to DMACC next year to major in engineering.

Novedge: How did you become interested in engineering and design technology?
Jacob Sunderland: I was introduced to engineering by my freshman math teacher and I started to look into engineering and find out what it was all about. I then got involve with the ACE Mentor Program and worked with actual engineers and learned about what they do on a day to day basis and help in a group project of designing a mock building.

Novedge: What kind of classes and/or programs in engineering and design technology does your school offer?
Jacob Sunderland: My school offers quite a few classes for engineering and design but I was only able to take a few. I completed Drafting 1 last year and I am currently in Engineering Drafting this year and it is one of my favorite classes. Like I mentioned before I was involved in the ACE Mentor Program which gave me hand on experience with what professionals in the engineering field have to face everyday.

Novedge: Can you talk about your project that won 1st place at the Iowa Industrial Technology Competition?
Jacob Sunderland: The competition that I competed in was the Intro to CAD. In this competition I was given a packet of ten drawings and was told to recreate them on AutoCAD as fast and as accurately as I could. The drawings were ordered from easiest in front and started to get harder towards the end. I was able to complete 7 out of 10 of the drawings and was given one hour to do so.

Novedge: What software do you use and why?
Jacob Sunderland: The software that I use is called AutoCAD and I use this because it is the software that my school provides us with and is the software that I have used for two years now and have grown quite familiar with.

Novedge: Who are you inspired by? Do you have a mentor?
Jacob Sunderland: I'm am most inspired by my drafting teacher Mr. VanWey I would also call him my mentor because he has taught me a lot about the software and how to be efficient with how I build things on it.

Novedge: What are your plans for the future?
Jacob Sunderland: I am going to DMACCfor a couple years to work on my prerequisite class in the engineering program and plan on transferring up to Iowa State University to finish out my studies in engineering. And after that I hope to find a job in the mechanical engineering field.

The Edge: Yuri Alexander's Shadows

2013-05-28T09:00:00-07:00

Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do

Yuri Alexander: My name is Yuri Alexander. I'm 28 years old. I live near Seattle, Washington. I live with my wife, 8 month old daughter, and our dog, and I have been focusing on Computer Graphics since 2007, specifically realtime art for games.

I've been doing art in one form or another most of my life. I worked in graphic design after high-school, but when I discovered Computer Graphics, something clicked. The mix of technical and artistic scratches all of my creative itches, and it's been a field I've loved since then.

After being laid off from a graphics design position, I made the choice to put my effort into getting involved in the games industry, which is a goal I've been after for the last three years.

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?

Yuri Alexander: My latest piece, Shadows, was a personal piece, and perhaps my favorite so far. It was also my first finished foray into photo-realism, and one of my first serious attempts overall at rendering. I chose to do it because I've been watching the skill-sets between games and movies converging, and I felt that having some familiarity with traditional renders and shaders would be good experience and would give me some problem-solving flexibility.

My conception for the piece was a woman standing in dark, with moody lighting and realistic shaders, with an unnamed presence hovering behind her. I knew going in that if I wanted to do the piece correctly, I would have to learn a good deal more about materials and about photography.

My favorite part of the process was detailing. In games, you are working with a limited budget. Most of the time you are aiming to create something that looks good from a distance, and presentable up close. True details that require effects, high polygon counts, and large texture sizes are generally off-limits.

A good deal of the piece ended up being straight trial and error, or the brute force method. I would create, render, learn from what was and wasn't working, and then go back into ZBrush and Photoshop and Maya and preserve the good while I whittled away at the bad. In the end, I had to try out quite a few material setups, lighting rigs, and compositions, before I found something I liked.

Novedge: What software do you use?

Yuri Alexander: I typically start all of my projects in Silo2. I learned Silo back before I had gotten into Maya, and although many of it's tools are present in the latter, to me, Silo is poly modeling at it's fastest and least encumbered. I use it to establish base meshes and do preliminary UV layouts, and also later in the process for checking game-res meshes and texture work.

For high-poly sculpting, I use ZBrush. I've used other clay modelers, and for texturing I still prefer Mudbox, but the mix of organic and hard-surface tools in ZBrush means that I can get 80-90 percent of my work done in a single application, which keeps me moving and focused on the art, and not necessarily the technicalities or the tedium of transferring between task-specific applications.

If I'm rendering, I use Maya and V-Ray, and sometimes Mental Ray. I find that both engines excel at different tasks, but because a lot of my work is character focused V-Ray is my go-to.

If I am creating a game-res character, then I use Silo and Xnormal. Silo is a perfect for tweaking meshes and modifying UVs, and then exporting to Xnormal for bake.

Finally, for texturing, I use Photoshop. For game-res models, I find Ndo2 indispensable, and dDo is becoming quite a tool as well. While I texture, I prefer to tweak and view my materials in either Marmoset Toolbag or UnrealDK.

Novedge: What inspires you?

Yuri Alexander: I think like most or many artists I'm inspired by just about everything I come into contact with. Specifically, though, I have an appreciation for writing. Writers live and die by style and creativity. In CG, sometimes it is enough to discard both style and creativity, and simply recreate the world detail for detail through the lens of a computer. My favorite CG artists and the ones who inspire me, are those that use the medium to push reality, and show us something that cannot or should not exist, or show us something that does exist in a way that we hadn't considered.

I also appreciate architecture, and, if I wasn't pursuing games, I think I'd want to be in arch-vis.

Novedge: What are the rewards and challenges of working freelance?

Yuri Alexander: The biggest reward is that I get to be home with my daughter full time. To me that outweighs every con of freelancing, and there are some big ones.

Keeping yourself on task can be difficult even with a quiet house. But with a baby learning to walk and play, it can be even harder. Freelancers also have to be good money managers, because the income is sporadic and can turn lean, and planning for those times is essential.

I appreciate the variety of projects I get to be involved with. At once I can be working on a game-res character or prop, and also getting 3D scan-data to work with and modify, or doing a random bit of graphic design. It allows me to be more scatter-brained than if I was concentrating on one single piece of a larger pipeline.

Novedge: What's next for you?

Yuri Alexander: I'm excited right now to be working with a small company on a 3D scan and print project. While I can't say too much about the project itself, I've been interested in scanning and printing for a couple of years. I'm glad to be getting the experience, especially as 3D printers are becoming more mainstream.

See more of Yuri's work on his website.

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The Edge: What is the Matter(form)?

2013-05-24T09:00:00-07:00

Novedge: Adam and Drew, tell us a bit about you.

Drew Cox: We are both tinkerers, makers, and inventors. Adam [Brandejs] specializes in electronics and design, while I'm more engineering and software.

Novedge: Partnerships are powerful, but can also be difficult. How did you two come together? What makes your collaboration successful?

Drew Cox: We met through working in Advertising. We both had a love for interesting tech, and Adam knew every cutting edge thing that was out there. So we started working together on projects and one of the ideas was for a laser based 3D Scanner. We work well together because our skills only overlap where it's important. Otherwise we are both pretty eclectic individuals.

Novedge: Why do we need the Matterform?

Drew Cox: Maybe not need, but want. 3D Scanning is a technology that is new to a lot of people, and the more people that get to try it out, the more interesting things we find to do with it. Right now there are a lot of people from all walks of life who are interested in the Matterform 3D Scanner. Everything from medical and dental applications, to artists, or dads wanting to save their daughters plasticine sculptures. The uses are really unlimited.

Beta Scan

Novedge: You received great support on Indiegogo. What advice would you give to anyone looking into financing their project using that platform?

Drew Cox: We used Indiegogo because it was open to Canadians. It's important to remember, with any crowd funding platform, that you be honest, and make sure you communicate to your backers as much as possible.

Beta Scan

Novedge: Do you have a 3D printer at home? Or do you use a 3rd-party 3D printing service?

Drew Cox: We use both. We have a few different 3D printers here in the shop, but we also use local services such as 3DPhacktory, and online services to help us print parts when we need them.

Novedge: What software do you use to prepare your files for 3D printing?

Drew Cox: We use a wide array of professional and free software. It depends what we are doing. I am a big fan of Solidworks, but it's not for beginners. Blender and SketchUp are great free modelling packages. After that we use Repetier (with Skeinforge and Slic3r) to print our own parts here.

Novedge: Are we in the midst of a 3D printing revolution?

Drew Cox: For sure! I want to live in a world where we can fabricate whatever we want without big machines and lots of restrictions.

Novedge: What's next for the Matterform and for you?

Drew Cox: We're just focused on finishing the production of the Matterform Scanner, and polishing off all the software. Of course we never stop tinkering and developing new ideas, so hopefully there will be some surprises to come.

Check out Matterform's website for more details and images.

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