Joseph Rowe Week6 3D Print Model "Linked"

LINKED

I’m calling this 3D print project “Linked” because it is meant to convey human connectedness on multiple levels. The viewer may see three people holding hands and forming a circle. The figures are bent and would fall were they not connected. They are literally holding each other up. If one falls, they all fall.

The structure itself is constructed of the type of links used in chains. The links would fall apart if they were not “welded” together. It is their connectedness that gives them strength.

Christian viewers may see it as the three crosses on the hill called Golgotha. They may see the crosses of Jesus and the two men crucified with him and recall that Jesus reached out to them and promised the repentant thief he would be with Jesus in Paradise.
 

The crosses also have meaning to non-Christians because they symbolize our common suffering as expressed in the old saying, “We all have our crosses to bear.” A former pastor of mine (now deceased), once told me that suffering is a human experience common to everyone who ever lived. Somehow, suffering is more bearable when it is shared.

Creating this model was a bit of a technical struggle. Creating a unified mesh for a watertight model for 3D printing proved difficult. The boolean union command failed to connect the cylinders and Taurus segments that comprise each length unless there was a tiny overlap. I originally tried fillets to connect the links but those also proved problematic. I was forced to restart from scratch to build a workable model.

Original flawed model

 

 

Rhino model with no naked edges

 

Rendered with KeyShot

 

Rendered with KeyShot

I ended up aligning the links and slightly overlapping the ends to allow unity and strengthen the structure. That led me to bow the figures slightly to imply the stress of gravity and emphasize the importance of the connections between the three figures. The original heavy base was replaced with a ring that reflects the same weight as the rest of the structure. To me, the result is much more aesthetically pleasing than my original attempt.