MAT238: Introduction Assignment

This project describes the steps I took to build my first 3D model in Rhinoceros. Throughout this process, I learned how to use and experiment with Rhinoceros, its Grasshopper plugin, and baking and slicing 3D models.

To start building to first model, I first followed the assignment instructions to create a simple point grid using python and Grasshopper. The python code in order to achieve this was fairly simple – just a nested for loop that creates a Rhinoceros point. Its inputs were two points and the number of points that could be between these two points. For my assignment, I chose one point to be on the origin, and one point that I arbitrarily set to (10, 10). Even with this simple script, it was interesting to see how changing the number of points that could be in between the two set points changed the overall layout of the base structure of the 3D model.

Once I was able to create a basic point grid, I added a few extra parameters described in the instructions of the assignment to create more diverse and interesting spacings between the points, not just simply a coordinate grid. These parameters included a modulus value and a calculation type value. These values modified the way in which the a particular (i, j) tuple of the nested loop created a set of (x, y) points on the actual grid. Below are some of the different type of grids that I created by changing the different type and modulus values.

In order to create objects from these grids, I next had to create lines and connections between different points on the grid. To do this, I followed the instructions and used a threshold distance between two points to decide whether or not two points should be connected. After experimenting with different distance lengths, modulus and type values, and ranges, I finally settled on a model I liked.

Once I settled on a 3D model, I baked and sliced it using Cura's Ender-3 Pro settings. When I scaled the object to 151mm x 151mm x 45.4mm, it weighed 330g and gave me an estimate of 2 day, 9 hours, and 10 minutes to print it.