The computational design patterns reminded me of shadow puppets that are popular in Asia. Traditional shadow puppets are made out of cow hide. I wanted to recreate this using plastic and computational design.

I used a adjusted a Voronoi code. You can download it here

For this assignment, I decided to study a few images that had compelling gradients to see how it translated into packed circles. Once I prepared the images, I then played around with the radii range and the spacing offset of the circles (to make is possible to laser cut) until I got a lace-like pattern that revealed or implied the original gradient in the image.

I also experimented with a few different materials (rice paper, mylar, vellum, opaque and translucent styrene (?)).

RICE PAPER:

LAYERING:

VELLUM:

MYLAR:

LAYERING TRANSLUCENCY:

WHITE STYRENE:

TRANSLUCENT STYRENE:

EVERYTHING LAYERED:

These diagrams were then given a local offset, relative to the size of the cell, to generate a changing thickness.

Finally since the voronoi diagram and the delauney diagram are inversions of each other, diagrams made from the same point cloud can be stacked.

voronoi delauney 1

voronoi delauney 2

The polar rose is a the forms generated by the equation r= a*cos(theta*n/d) and results in the possible forms shown below (from Wikipedia). I chose this equation because it produces a large range of shapes from a single code.

I inserted this equation in the the “Random” Voronoi generator by Jennifer. My code is below, but not properly commented.

Lace for one view

I then realized that for my belt, I would have to scale down the design so that it would fit the dimensions of the belt. I measured the belt and modified the pattern accordingly by adjusting the size in the code.

This is what the design looked like:

I also decided I wanted to create more than one design so I can laser cut both on the belt to see what looks better. So this is a spiral pattern overlaid on top of a grid pattern:

Once at the laser cutter, I realized I would have to work in pieces because the belt was too long to fit in the laser cutter.  Before even starting on the belt, I tested my design on a piece of cardstock to make sure I had the dimensions correctly and that the design turned out how I wanted.  I also tested a portion of the design on a piece of scrap leather so that I could determine the correct speed and power settings for the laser cutter. I started the laser cutter with very a very high speed and low power and noticed that it only etched the leather. I then opted to decrease the speed significantly because I knew the leather would need some time to burn away. I adjusted the settings to 10 for speed and 100 for power and ultimately settled on 20 speed and 90 power after testing out a few pieces with the leather.

Test pieces:

Finally I placed the belt in the laser cutter, made sure it was aligned, and started it up. The spiral pattern was going to take up about half the belt. Once this was done, I moved the belt down so that I could continue with the second design and laser cut the grid pattern that is shown above, on the second half of the belt.

Here is a comparison of the design on the cardstock and the result on the belt:

The laser cutter burned through the leather in most places, but there were a few places it did not. This was probably because the belt may have moved a bit while in the laser cutter because it was hard to fit in there. Also in certain areas it was not aligned perfectly so it tried to cut through the part of the belt where there were seams which probably made it harder to cut.

Here is my finished product!

As a final project, I laser cut the Voronoi diagram I designed initially for this project in cardstock:

Here is a link to my Processing code.

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For this assignment, I used Grasshopper (plug-in for Rhino3D) circle packing script to generate different patterns for laser-cut lace.

Instead of packing circles completely on a given surface, I decided to use multiple attractor points to define starting points of circle packing. Below image shows a screenshot of Grasshopper interface and also a 3D view of the pattern generated in Rhino.

The picture above shows two layers of laser cut surface with spacers at larger circle areas to create undulating surface.

Then the next iteration was to use the attractor points as boundary lines. These boundary lines can be used to stitch different sections together if one were to use this pattern to make wearable piece. You can see the location of attractor points in the laser cut piece (bottom left image). I couldn’t use a single line as an attractor, so I had to use multiple points on a line. After the pattern was generated, I manually deleted some of the smaller circles next to attractor points to get a clean line of “seams”.

The bottom picture is the final laser-cut piece that shows clearly defined attractor-point lines, where circles get more compact and smaller near the seam lines and larger towards the center of the bounded zone. It resembles a starfish!

Finally, I used denim fabric to laser cut the script-generated pattern. At first I scaled down the pattern to a 8″ diameter size to test the tolerance. Some of the larger cut areas didn’t hold, and started to fall apart. In the next cut, I scaled up the pattern three times. Now there is about 1/8″ fabric between each circular cuts.

If I were to use this in a wearable project, I would first create a quilt-like pattern and apply circle packing script on each section. Then the “seam” or the “rib” areas can be used to fold, stitch, cut the fabric into a wearable piece.

This is the basic code, from this code it is possible to create spiral, circular and other patterns:
/*This example illustrates a simple method to generate a set of deliberately placed
points to control the structure of a voronoi diagram. This particular example
create a beehive and allows many patterns to be built on it.*/
void setup() {
size(600,600,P3D); //size of your intended pattern
noLoop(); // don't need to use the draw loop
/*unique name for your file. if left unchanged,
will simply save file with current milisecond*/
String fileName= "voronoi"+millis()+".pdf";
beginRaw(PDF, fileName); //enables you to save your design to a pdf
setupVoronoi(); // create your voronoi generator

}


2. The flexible surface

3. The conductive surface

THe conductive surface is made out of two pieces of conductive fabric with regular fabric in between. I used conductive fabrice with glue on one side that can stick with heat when ironing. First I glued the conductive fabric to the regular fabric. I cut it in beehive shape with the laser cutter, then, I cut the other conductive fabric (without gluing it) in the same pattern. Then I glued the fabric to the other side of the regular fabric. So the regular fabric is an insulator.
Each side of the new fabric is now conductive and I can connect one side to positive and other side to negative. I connected LED to one side of the fabric when it touches the other side it is lit.

During the exploration course, I found a voronoi shape that I became very found of. It is a simple flower shape with one spiral which branches out from the center. The geometry is very simple yet many astonishing moments which I have chosen to capture through photography.

I found the ‘rails’ of this voronoi simple yet beautiful.

This is an image taken of the back of a cut sheet using the metal + heavy paper which did not cut through.

The way that light travels through this voronoi creates and interesting halo.

The centers of this particular cutting is very delicate and I dare not pull the small pieces out.

Lastly, here is the processing code to generate this pattern.

 void setup() {
size(800,800,P3D); //size of your intended pattern
noLoop(); // don't need to use the draw loop
/*unique name for your file. if left unchanged,
will simply save file with current milisecond*/
String fileName= "voronoi"+millis()+".pdf";

beginRaw(PDF, fileName); //enables you to save your design to a pdf

setupVoronoi(); // create your voronoi generator

// =========GENERATE SPIRAL=============== //

int centerLimit = 500; // variable to control the maximum diameter of the spiral
float theta = .2; //like the diameter of your circle, but increases with every point in your spiral, producing the spiral effect.

//this will draw one spiral
for(int k=0;k        theta +=.7; //change to alter the tightness of your spiral
drawPoint(width/2,height/2,theta,theta);

}

drawVoronoi(); //renders your voronoi
endRaw(); //ends the recording

}

void drawPoint(float orgX, float orgY, float theta, float diameter) { //function that generates and adds circular points

float xPos = sin(theta)*diameter+orgX;
float yPos = cos(theta)*diameter+orgY;

 voronoi.addPoint(new Vec2D(xPos, yPos));

In my first experiment, I wanted to get a dispersion effect with shapes and Grasshopper would be the tool.

Image of Rhino display of Grasshopper program using a point as an attractor

Grasshopper program that produced the design shown above in Rhino

Lace Pattern produced using the layout of the circles.

I made those circles that were unattached (not touching other circles) those that I would cut out of the paper.

My second experiment with Grasshopper involved generating a pattern of circles by relating the radii of circles to an image. Where the pixel is dark, the circle will be small dark pixel, and where bright, the circle will be large.

Image of micro-organisms as the generator of the pattern

Rhino visualization of the image generated program

Grasshopper program that generated the design above

I applied the same rule and allowed circles that were not touching other circles to cut through the material.

After experimenting with Grasshopper, I went on to Processing. I edited programs we were given for some awesome Voronoi diagrams. I experimented with several changes in the program but am only able to put a few of them here.. I must say this though..

I would like to thank Lin Lin for going over with me again the procedure for editing the pdf file in Adobe Illustrator. Click here for notes on How to edit your file in Illustrator, AND on how to export to a .dwg file sans a million hatches.

Voronoi Pattern

Pattern after Laser cutting

My fourth lace cut is shown below….

Image of design

Design after cutting

Procedure for editing file in Abode Illustrator >>>

This was a great assignment.. I really hope to become a professional in Rhino, Grasshopper and Processor one day!

Vernelle Noel – Resources

• Website
• Blog
• Flickr
• Youtube

This work by Vernelle Noel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

I created a pattern for a tank top based on the dimensions of another top that I had in my closet. I modified the neckline to make it a boatneck shape, maximizing space for the iron-on pieces to let the focus of the top be on the lace designs.

The pattern for the lace was generated using Processing with a Voronoi diagram generator. I modified several parameters in Jennifer’s spiral and circle Voronoi code, which draws points in the pattern of  a combination of spirals and circles. Voronoi diagrams are generated from this set of points by partitioning the plane into convex polygons so that each of the points are contained within the polygon and any point in a given polygon is closer to this generating point than to any other generating points (more at Wolfram Math World).

This is the resulting lace pattern after cropping lines which extended beyond the drawing area:

I ironed iron-on adhesive to a piece of yellow lining fabric. Then, I laser cut this pattern three times in slightly different sizes.

I used tweezers to carefully remove the paper backing. Then, I arranged the three lace pieces on the shirt front and ironed them in place.

Here is the Processing code for the Voronoi lace pattern: