Timothy Gray: Project 3 Waffle Construction Vessel

Concept: For this project, I created a lamp vessel sculpture using waffle construction. My inspiration for the interior design was an hourglass shape, and the exterior design was inspired by pottery vessels. I wanted to capture the general oval shapes of the pottery rather than follow an exact design of a particular type. The drawings below were created in Adobe Illustrator.

Techniques: After setting up the vector shapes in Rhino, I used the Revolve command to create the basic shapes of the model. This allowed me to easily generate the proper form of the vessel. Next, I used the Contour command to help create the slices in both the X and Y directions. Afterwards, I used the Extrude command to convert the contour lines into three-dimensional surface objects. After using the script files to cut and unroll the ribs, I cleaned up the edges produced by the scripts bugs using a combination of both the Explode (to unjoin the curves) and Split (to delete any unwanted lines).

Materials: For the Keyshot renders, I gave thought to how I would envision the physical structure. I assigned one of the wood textures to the model to represent the final iteration (I planned to use birch plywood for the physical structure). I also assigned the kitchen countertop as it deemed most appropriate for the usage of a lamp.

Concept Drawings

Reference and Inspiration

Rhino: Model Prior to Slicing

Rhino: Sliced Sodel

Rhino: Vector Layout

Keyshot: Orthographic Views

Keyshot: Environment (Kitchen Countertop)

Keyshot: Close-Up 1

Keyshot: Close-Up 2

The Redesign

     Upon laser cutting the file itself, there were several errors in the file that needed to be corrected. I decided to change the x-slices (vertical) into a radial orientation rather than parallel. Doing this would result in a reduced number of pieces to assemble. Additionally, the several of the slices in the needed to be re-arranged in order to eliminate any negative spaces within the design as well as to have the slices fitted from the outside of the model inward. Instead of re-using the scripts, the new notches were created manually from the pre-existing model.

New Layout for Laser and Keyshot Renderings

The Physical Model

Orthographic images (With Perspective View)

Lamp in Environment

Lamp Close-Ups