Reflections on the Power of Making Real Things

What was your favorite piece(s)?  Who is the artist?  What was the method of production?  Photograph it.

One of my favorite pieces was the “Fully Articulated 3d Printed Gown for Burlesque Icon Dita Von Teese, 2013”. It was a joint piece created by two American artists: Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti. Schmidt create the initial designs and sketches. Bitonti then took Schmidt’s sketches and rendered them on a CAD system. Schmidt says he was inspired by and loosely based his design on the mathematical formulas known as the Golden Ratio. His reasoning is that “it is said that its a spiral that historically has quantified ideal portions of beauty”. Once the 3d design was complete, it was sent to Shapeways for printing. Shapeways 3d printed the gown in several pieces. The process used was laser sintering. The 3000 articulated joints in the gown were rendered within the 3d printed process. The gown was printed in several pieces in white. After it was printed, the printed product was dyed black and then finished in lacquer. At this point the gown was assembled. After assembly, 12,000 Swarovski Crystals were added by hand (see my video below to see the effect).

My video of the sparkling crystals: http://youtu.be/12KRvkLb7q4

Video of the artist describing his piece: http://youtu.be/3cFdbxMhtoA

What were three observations/lessons you learned from the exhibit?

1. Software woes. When we arrived at the Museum of Arts and Design, my goal was to explore it front the top down. We were directed to the 6th floor where they were having an “open studio” session with a 3d-printing artist. There I met artist Marcy Milks. She is currently working on a project titled “The Population“. The piece, which is in progress, consists of 20,000 unique 4” sculptures. We had a great conversation about her process. As a software designer, I was particularly interested in her interaction with the software as a canvas and how the technical aspects work. It turns out that Milks deals with a lot of the same obstacles mentioned in the book Fabricated. One interesting issue is that a 3d sculpture/illustration application doesn’t exist. Milks is currently using software intended for animation. The second issue is that the way the files are interpreted present a whole never set of problems. If she 3d prints the design as is, the sculpture would be too brittle and fall apart when being handled. So, instead she first creates her design, then has to trick the software into printing an outer shell of the design. I didn’t understand exactly how this worked, but basically by telling the computer to do the wrong thing (task it wasn’t intended to do), it is able to output a more study sculpture. Essentially the sculptures are still hollow. Why not just print it solid? It’s a matter of cost. She says to print a hollow sculpture it only costs her $6 versus $20 for a solid sculpture. That wouldn’t be too much of a problem for a handful of these, but she is expecting to 3d print a minimum of 20,000 of these little guys!

2. New possibilities of approaching physical art. Another tremendous insight gained from this experience at the Museum of Arts and Design is the new real of possibility that this medium creates. In chatting with Marcy Milks, she mentioned that if she were to create 20,000 sculptures in plaster, by hand or by casting, it would take her much too long and likely lose interest. 3d printing creates an entirely new realm of possibilities. Not just in the case of scale (like Ms. Milk’s project) but also in the complexity of the artwork itself. Additive manufacturing allows for incredible detail not previously possible in mediums such as hand sculpting or injection molding.

3. Another important insight gained from this exhibit is that additive manufacturing is not a solitary one-step process. Most, if not all, of the pieces in the exhibit required significant “post production” after coming out of the 3d printers. For example, the 3d dress showcased above was printing in fragments. Those fragments were then treated with special chemicals, dyed black, and then finished with lacquer.

How does your visit to the exhibit inform what you have been learning from reading Fabricated?

1. Software issues. As I mentioned above regarding the Marcy Milks “The Population”, the software still seems to be in its infancy. The book, Fabricated, went into great detail about the problems with file formats and translating design files into print files (STL). My conversation with the artist above reinforced these issues.

2.  Low cost (3d scanning, Microsoft Kinect). One area where I feel that Fabricated left a lot to be desired is the discussion of 3d-scanning. At the last section of the exhibit, Shapeways set up an area where museum goers can be “3d scanned” and then they can order a 3d printed sculpture of themselves from their website. The set up was relatively simple. They had a rotating platform, a solid color backdrop and two photographic lamps. The scanning was done using a retail-off-the-shelf Microsoft Kinect device. This device is sold as a companion product to Microsoft Windows and it sells for less than $150.

In what ways did your visit shape your area of interest in 3D design and printing?

This exhibit truly gave me a deeper sense of appreciation for additive manufacturing. Every art piece was created using some form of 3d printing, in all its different methods (laser sintering, additive manufacturing, etc.). It’s inspiring to see artists experiment and create marvelous pieces with this infant technology. Some of these pieces could only be previously exist in the mind of an artist and thanks to the coming of age for a new technology (ability to create complex shapes, etc.) we are entering into an entirely new realm of possibility.  Below is a picture I took of a highly ornate column from the exhibit. This type of high resolution decoration would be incredibly difficult and time consuming to do by hand. The last two photos were of a small diorama in the exhibit which talked about the low cost, rapid, and innovative way of manufacturing homes in the future using additive manufacturing processes. While not as artistically dramatic as the other pieces, I found this to be incredibly inspiring.

At first I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been a part of hackathons and I’ve attended Bent Fest so my expectations where somewhat in line with those events. However there was a different element. This class is a collection of Zicklin Honors business students. For them, this was the first time being exposed to a collaborative hands-on event like this. What was interesting was that even in the limited time given, everyone was able to put something together and exercise their creativity.

Initially, I gravitated toward the Arduino electronics kit. Unfortunately, the kit required an IDE and a power supply. I asked the professor if I could just spend the class time studying the manual but unfortunately that would defeat the purpose of the exercise. So, after moving around the room looking for another kit to work with, I ended up working with Viktoria on a modular electronics kit. I chose this over the other items because I wanted to do something with electronics and/or software. The other projects were a bit more on the artsy side, so this was a good second choice to the Arduino kit. This was not my first time working with electronics. In the past I’ve played with electronics kits and have done modifications to the circuits on musical instruments. What I haven’t done yet, is combine my interest in computer programming with “hardware” programming. Perhaps that might be my next step!

Viktoria and I ended up connecting a few of the modular electronic components to come up with a “walking propeller”. We connected a power module, a sliding potentiometer, a small propeller, and an LED light. When the slider is between 0-50%, the propeller spins in one direction. When the slider is above 50%, it spins in the opposite direction. When laid down flat, and when you oscillate the voltage with the potentiometer, the propeller alternates direction and creates the illusion of walking. The LED light pulsated along which helped us determine how much voltage was going through the circuit. Here is a video of our project in action. Given more time, I would want to learn to use the Arduino kit to build a remote sensing device that is aware of elements in its surrounding.

This article was published this morning and it is absolutely mind-blowing. While my personal interests are in the aerospace sector, anyone that knows me knows that whenever we talk about 3d printing, I’m most excited about its application in bio-tech. Previously I only thought about custom and affordable prosthetics for children but this here… this is another level of amazing.

3D printing has been creeping its way into the healthcare industry, slowly but surely, over the last few years. We have seen 3D printed human tissue, 3D printed prosthetics of all types, and now 3D printing is being used as a model for doctors to better envision particular procedures.

Roland Lian Cung Bawi, the 14 month old son of two Burmese immigrants, now residing in Owensboro, Kentcky, had major defects to his tiny little heart. The defects, which included a hole in his heart as well as misaligned aorta and pulmonary arteries, if untreated would have doomed Roland to a short unhealthy life. This is when Surgeon Erle Austin stepped in. Austin initially had 2D images of Roland’s heart, which he showed to several other surgeons, on his path to correct Roland’s condition. The problem was that the 2D scans were not precise enough, leading to several surgeons offering different suggestions on how to proceed. This is not the kind of advice a surgeon likes to receive, leading up to a major operation.

This is when Austin decided to turn to the School of Engineering at Louisville. They used a Makerbot Replicator 2X, 3D Printer to create a model of Roland’s heart, and all its defects. The model was printed in 3 separate pieces so that the surgeons could take it apart and see the interior.

“Once I had a model, I knew exactly what I needed to do and how I could do it,” said Austin. “It was a tremendous benefit.”

Having the model 3D printed allowed Austin to cut out a significant part of exploratory surgeries, and also shorten the time it took to operate on the tiny, delicate heart. The surgery was successfully completed on Monday, February 10th, and marked the first use of a 3D printer in the state of Kentucky for a pediatric heart patient. Roland is doing well and his family is relieved.

3D Printing Helps Fix Child’s Heart, Save Life