CS 291I Assignment 1
This Instructable documents my experience with the first assignment in CS 291I (Computational Fabrication) at UC Santa Barbara taught by Professor Jennifer Jacobs.
The goal of this assignment was to use the Rhino and Grasshopper software to create a procedurally generated 3D model that is 3D printable.
Create the Grasshopper Code
Using guidance and example code from the professor, I created the following design. I did not add any changes to the code provided since I used this assignment to get familiar with Rhino and the Grasshopper interfaces.
The Grasshopper code is pictured above.
Explanation of code: It is first creating a grid of points within the area of two points specified and then creating lines if they are below the threshold specified by the dist variable. Afterwards, the points go through an offset curve component which creates two identical curves to the given curve with an offset specified by the Distance variable. Afterwards these are passed to a Boundary component which creates 2D surfaces for these items. The Extrude component will extend this object into the z axis and create a 2.5D/3D object. Then the resulting objects are boolean union-ed so that they become one singular object.
Bake Resulting Model Into Rhino
Afterwards, I baked the resulting model from the Grasshopper code into Rhino so that I could export it.
Issues encountered in this step:
- Boolean union operation failing
- Many times, the generated form would keep failing once it hit the boolean union step. To circumvent this, I tried using a simpler (however more boring) model and the boolean operation worked, which is what you see above.
Checking the Model Slicing in Cura
Issues encountered in this step:
- Scale is extremely small, causing strange slicing
- Originally, my model was extremely small and when placed into Cura, so the slicing would look extremely strange. I believe this is because the lines that were in the model were smaller than what the printer could actually print. To fix this, I scaled the resulting model within Rhino.
Example of weird slicing is pictured above
Final Product
After scaling and checking the slicing in Cura, here is the final model.