JieXing Yee: Week 9 Waffle Construction

 

Concept:

The concept of my model started from this cool spaceship design I found randomly. I really liked the look of the wings, where it forms a silhouette that covers the center part, so I thought to make something similar to that. I was also considering turning it into a space station but I didn’t like the idea too much. 

At first, the model was going to have 3 fins with a sphere in the center, but because that didn’t fit the theme of being a vessel I had to change the design. The final design I chose is an ancient sci-fi container with 4 fins surrounding it. 

Techniques:

To create my model, I first started with using the Polyline tool and Control Point Curve tool to create the fins. Then, I used the Cylinder tool to create the base plate. I aligned the fin to the base plate and then Mirrored it, duplicated it, and Rotated it. After that, I used the Cylinder tool again for the rest of the body. I put a sphere on the top of the cylinder, then BooleanUnion’d them. Lastly, I duplicated the center piece, scaled it down, and then used BooleanDifference to carve a hole in the center.

Next, I used the Contour command to get the horizontal contours, and then put the model inside a Bounding Box. Then I used that as a guide for the Section command to create the radial contours. Then I used PlanarSrf to turn the contours into surfaces, and then used the Intersection command. I then created Pipes with the intersection curves, and used those to create the notches by Splitting the pieces with the pipe.

The last step is to prepare the model for laser cutting. I created new contours based on the new notched model, and then I used the BetterMassiveUnroll script to lay out the contours onto the reference box.

Materials:

In KeyShot, I applied the Ash wood material to all the pieces. Then I put it into an environment with a gray background, and added a Spotlight to give the model depth. After that, I put the model into an environment with a sun, then I adjusted it to the proper angle. I also turned on ground reflections so that it looks like it’s sitting on a glass table. 

The physical model was made with plywood, and no post processing was applied.