Melanie Estes: Week 11 Laser Engraving

     Last semester my design in my engraved skateboard was mainly lines, so this semester I wanted to try doing an image raster. I played with some landscapes I had taken on vacation first. While my images were in high detail they did not dial down well into only a few levels. Instead I started looking at pictures I had taken of my dog; I had plenty of selection, there are over 400 on my phone alone. I found one that did well when converted to just black and white:

Hershey: in color

Hershey: black and white

     I edited out the background in photoshop. I then selected what was left, expanded a few pixels, and feathered by just one. I then filled this area with black to add an outline around his head. I used this in Rhino as a picture frame. My dog's name is Hershey, so I decided to put his face on a wrapper for a Hershey's chocolate bar. I took this image and traced around the outside using curves. I placed the image of Hershey on the right edge of the wrapper with the picture frame tool. I drew a curve around the outside to help define the border. I used this line and the outline of the bar to trim the excess from the image. I then used straight curves to cut out the squares of the unwrapped chocolate. To match the font exactly, I also wrote the letters using curves by tracing over an image found here. I laid out the letters to spell Hershey and copied and scaled it into each square. I also scaled it up onto the wrapper, and trimmed out the pieces where the wrapper was open and around the image. I applied some letters to the areas of the wrapper that were open at the same scale as the main outside piece. I warped them to fit the curves using cages and cage edit. I finally divided the lines among the 3 levels of engraving. I made the lines between the squares and outlines of the letters the deepest, the more detail lines medium, and the letters on the wrapper itself shallow.

Cutsheet

Ghosted painted black

Layer assignments

     I'm first going to have the entire piece cut out of a single piece of wood to test the rastering. My plan, though, is to have the pieces cut out separately so I can apply different color stains to the different areas. To show this, I hatched the parts separately and extruded them to different heights. I added 5 different wood materials in Keyshot and scaled them all individually. I used black walnut on the small letters, heavy grain wood on the chocolate, light oak on the large letters, procedural on the inside of the wrspper, and soft maple on the outside of the wrapper. The soft maple did not have a bump map so I added a brushed texture.

Render 1

Render 2

Render 3

Render 4

   
     To finish my piece, I used four different wood stains. I used black cherry for the darkest part of the chocolate, cabernet for the letters on the chocolate and the wrapper background, golden oak for the image and inside of the wrapper, and a worn gray for the letters on the wrapper. Because some of the areas for each stain were so small, I used paint brushes to brush it on instead of rubbing it into the wood. To increase the contrast of the image and made it sow up better, I rubbed in some black acrylic paint that was diluted with water about 4 times. I sealed the entire thing with with two coats of satin finish polyurethane.

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Michelle Ignacz: Week 11 Laser Engrave

For the concept of my laser engraving project, I wanted to import in one of my older drawings that I had previously not finished and finish it out in Photoshop and then shade it for the engraving so that it would add more depth to it instead of a flat 2D concept on the material I later chose to do on.
When it comes to the material for it, I was thinking of using either wood or perhaps a piece of tile to help give it more of an artistic flair due to the different grains of material inside of the tile. I do plan on experimenting with the material choice due to the fact that I have a very deep appreciation to texture choices and feel of a piece.
When coming to actually creating the rastor/engraving of the image I choose, I first scanned in the original photo I had and went back over it all in Photoshop, creating an outline of the object so that the laser would have something clean to cut out. After this, I applied a type of background and a shadow underneath the model to help give it the faux 3-D look so that way it did not seem to be slapped right onto the surface and to give it a type of lift. Once I was finished with that, I went back over with different greyscales to help make it pop even more efficiently in its 2D space. I finished the file and then converted it into an .ai file so that the work done would become vectors and that better suited for the engraving machine.

Original Concept

Engraving Concept 01

Engraving Concept 02

Updated: So with the final work, I engraved my work on a 1/4" sheet of plywood and then went over it with acrylic paint to have the details pop since the original engraving was too dark on the wood. With the paint I was able to pull out all of the details seen in Concept 01 above. 

 View 01

View 02

Jeremiah Baker - Laser Engrave

scaled layout for laser-cutter

full size layout for laser-cutter

3D concept

Concept:
     I wanted to create a base for my serial slice project, and I thought a laser engraved something would fit perfectly. I thought the make2D command example from class was really cool, so I decided to use it to somehow create an interesting base for the sculpture. I ended up going with a shadow kind of design. The model will stand on the base plate, and will 'cast' an engraved shadow onto it. Since we were limited on size for this particular project, I decided to use it to test a scaled version of my design, and since it wouldn't make much sense without the sculpture, I cut out a scaled version of my other project to go with it. (the class is all about prototyping, right?)

Modeling Techniques:
     I positioned the original elephant model in the perspective window at an angle, and then used the make2D command to create a flat version of just that panel. I then scaled the 2D version to look similar to a shadow and lined it up with the legs of the actual model. (this took some trial and error, having to reposition and create new make2D vectors) After I got the vector lined up, I positioned it in the reference window and applied all the necessary color assignments. I also used the text and hatch function to sign the work. (I though it would be fitting if I used the font called "elephant") I also scaled the original model to match the engraving and repeated all the techniques outlined in my serial slice project. When creating the layout for the scaled version, I wanted to be efficient with the material I already had, so I copied the layouts from my other projects as reference so I could accurately place the new cuts to avoid the spots that were already cut out.

Materials Used:
     I used plywood to create the engraving. I also sanded the edges a bit to give them a bit of a champher, and applied a stain to the wood to bring out the grain and give it some color. For the scaled serial slice, I used the same techniques listed in my original serial slice blog post.

Jason Doze: Week 11 Laser Engraving

Vesalius Inverted Drawing

Vesalius

Rhino Setup

Second Panel With Triangles

 

 

Concept:  I used a photograph of a Vesalius drawing I did last summer in figure drawing and then inverted and used a halftone filter.  Then I manipulated a metatron cube and ran both of these in illustrator.  There I image traced the cube and outlined the drawing with a path function.  I set up the Vesalius figure within a six pointed star with the metatron cube in the center.  Next I found a triangle geometric illusion svg, manipulated it and put it on another piece of wood to set atop the previous piece.  

Materials:  I used birchwood and cedar laminated birchwood for the two engravings.  I'm spinning the top layer of wood with a ball bearing fixture and I've used a satin varnish to finish the bottom layer and I have dyed the top layer with orange and pink wood stain. 

Technique: I applied Ultra Dye wood stain with a synthetic paint brush to give the top panel some contrast over the bottom panel.  After applying the stain I sanded the drawn engravings to pull the wood back through.  I used a dremel tool with sanding blade to give the stain a weathered appearance and then clear gloss over the top to give it a protective coating.

Jose Diaz - Laser Engraving

For my laser engraving I wanted to combine a couple of designs that I really like to work with. Which consist of a deer theme and an Asian coin theme. I wanted to put these two things together in a way that was visually appealing without looking like they were competing with each other.

I used Illustrator to create my design to making sure to the image was completely made up of vectors. First I made half the coin just using basic shapes line circles and rectangles to create most of the design.  Once that was done I mirrored the image to create a whole and merged them together. Then on a different layer I created the deer image. With that image done I placed the deer on top of the round design and removed the inside elements so that the deer image was empty. After that the image was taken into Rhino so it could be engraved.

The final piece ended up becoming a key-ring holder. It’s made from ¾ inch birch plywood that was not stained but sealed with a poly in order to highlight the laser engraving without making it disappear had I used a darker stain. Then I added hooks in a staggered fashion in order to provide a place to put up your keys. Lastly I stained the edges of the plywood a dark brown in order to give it more visual interest.

Sarah Roberson: Serial Slice

Concept:

For my concept for this piece, I was recommended by a friend to do a Knight straight out of the chess game. The picture above is the one that I really liked. I really liked how the curves of the drawing we sharp and almost menacing. This is what drew me to the drawing above.

Modeling Techniques:

I modeled this in many different ways as to try and figure out the best way to get as much detail as possible out of my model. I first though, began by taking the concept picture at the top of this post and drew and initial shape with it. After I completed the initial shape, I trimmed off the hair on both the back of the neck and the forehead as well as the base on the bottom. I then revolved the base so it had organic movement to it rather than be blocky. I then extruded out the top piece and it gave it the shape on the top ghosted image. I then had a friend who helped me learn how to contour it to where there was one face on the side rather than several. This created a flat plane to be able to do some cool design work on it. To achieve the design on the side, I had a friend help me place an image traced version of my concept picture over the top and move it around to create different depths. This was just the inside portions of the picture rather than the whole thing. I then used the contours to move the different shapes across the model. I extruded the top and fitted it into the base by creating a tab that would allow me to set the piece inside without having to put dowel rods inside of it.

When I laid out my design after contouring it, I used a piece of wood that had already been used for another laser cutting project. So I had to scale it down several times to make sure I had enough room to lay out the entire design.

I also did two different versions of layers for Keyshot. The one on the top, was to create the look of one solid object but using two different materials, the other idea was to interlay several materials. I wanted it to look more interesting than just two material choices.

Material Choices:

For the materials inside of Keyshot, I used wood textures exclusively. Since my model was cut out of wood, I wanted to emulate that inside of Keyshot to mirror the idea of the materials I was actually going to use. For the lighter wood, I used the Ash material underneath the wood, then I used a heavy grain wood texture for the dark base. For the version where I have multiple different kinds of layers in the model, I once again used the ash wood but then this time, I used one of the Black Walnut textures, because I wanted to contrast the lightness of the Ash, with the darkness of the walnut wood colors. 

In the actual model, how I put it all together, was I used 1/8th of an inch dowel rod, 200 grit sand paper and Loctite Super Glue to put it all together. I didn't glue the top to the bottom because I wanted it to be able to come free so that whoever looks at it can see the entire thing rather than one piece.

To finish the actual model, I sprayed it with a semi-gloss sealant to make the wood grain pop even when it was sealed.

(Top In Pieces)

(Bottom In Pieces)

(Bottom Being Put On The Dowel Rods)

(Top All Together)

(Trial Run On It Together Entirely)

(After I Glued It Together)