Week 4 - Mesh Creation and Stacked Contours
Tuesday
Artist of the Day
![](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1598545/189894549-fe5a944d-3d61-4143-8abd-ad4856d9bbac.png)
Inmi Lee. I will not dance. 2016.
Also:
Working With Meshes
Solids vs. Meshes
- Solids
- what are they? (collections of surfaces)
- explode, cap
- when we export STL we are creating a mesh
- Meshes
Mesh Example
![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1598545/189800138-80ca4469-d7d3-4f3a-ab88-48cb677463e2.png)
Rhino file: solids_meshes.3dm
Importing Meshes
- Importing - Import
- Simplification (MeshReduce)
- Edit directly - PointsOn, and directly manipulating points on the mesh.
- Closed vs Open Meshes
- We need closed meshes for 3DP. Object properties will tell you if a mesh is an open or closed mesh.
- Attempt to patch an open mesh: Mesh -> Repair Tools -> Fill All Holes
- Rhino Mesh Repair tools
- Slicing a 3d mesh or surface object into 2d stacks
- Importing and slicing a complex mesh
- Finding a mesh (thingiverse.com)
- Importing a mesh into rhino
- Slicing a mesh with the contour command
- slicing/design for digital fabrication (material thickness considerations)
- Simplifying mesh
- Go from mesh to unrollable surface:
Example Buffalo Contours
![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1598545/189891871-067e9994-7137-4afd-b115-b3f5a529326b.png)
Rhino file: buffalo_contours.3dm
Example Sliced Pikachu
![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1598545/189891434-480d9b21-ffcf-4623-ae8a-09f4dcfb078f.png)
Rhino file: sliced_pikachu.3dm
Homework
Work on project 1 (due in one week, Tuesday 9/20)
Thursday
Artist of the Day 2
![](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1598545/190411078-971f6d55-1c00-4001-82f1-55b3fd4af56b.png)
Lawrence Malstaf
Homework 2
Complete project 1 (due Tuesday, 9/20)
Material Tests
- When you first work with a new material, you want to determine what settings work best for cutting and engraving.
- As a starting point, you can begin with the suggested settings for common materials.
- Typically you might produce a small shape (square, or text) which you can run multiple times with different settings for the
- Full Spectrum Laser (who manufactures our laser) has some material test files we can try: https://fslaser.com/material-test/
Cutting Acrylic
Acrylic is the most common plastic sheet good that we might cut with the laser cutter.
- We can vector cut, vector engrave, or raster engrave acrylic very successfully.
- When you first get a new sheet of acrylic, determine what thickness it is (calipers): measuring thickness
- Run some material tests to find speed, power, and current settings.
Plastic Suppliers
Reference
None