Assess Wk2 - Assessment Setup

Assess Wk1 - New picture of both my Mandelboxes

Left: White, Strong and Flexible. Right: Sandstone.

Wk12 - Sandstone Mandelbox arrived

My Mandelbox arrived today.  I thought the plastic (White, Strong and Flexible) one was good until the Sandstone one arrived... this one has so much more detail.  The depth is more perfect and the way it catches the light and shadows, it sooo much better.

Also, the sample kit is pretty cool. :)

Wk9 - Prototype stand for physical display

I spent the weekend trying out designs for a stand for the physical model.

It started as a design using sticky-tape and some paper clips...  I converted the idea to using wire, bent bent and twisted...  It's looking good.

Also, this is the first picture of the 3D printed model.

Wk8 - Physical Mandelbox Arrived today!!

My Mandelbox arrived today.  It turned out extremely well.  It is better than I imagined.  The detail is really good... the teeth on the edges are very fine.  I'm happy.  I'll upload a picture later.

Break Wk1 - Physical Possible!?

So, after installing the Collada plug-in, I was able to export from Maya into the DAE format, which when zipped came down from 87MB to 19MB

I imported the model into the Shapeways website... Within 15mins, I knew that the model was viable and even had a price tag attached.  Here are my first three uploads:

10.5cm solid displaced model = $869.92

5.4cm hollow displaced model = $127.59

5cm solid constructed model = $98.48

Clearly, the volume has something to do with the cost but I found that with my 5cm model, that making it hollow, whether a cube or an identical replica within made no difference to the volume or the cost... this could be related to the 5cm size though... not sure.

The question is, should I buy it for nearly $100?

Break Wk1 - Mandelbulber Slices to Cube...

I was showing David the ability for Mandelbulber to only show partial cross-sections of a fractal.  He gave me the thought of mixing the displacement idea with slices, captured front-on.

In the end, it seemed that only 27 slices were needed before I had reached a solid form:

I further refined this gradient to 11 slices, removing redundant levels having only small additional details:

Depth Animation

This was still producing non-mirroring geometry thus, in photoshop, it was mirrored, flipped, etc.  The result was a near-perfect slice used to create a single cube side.

This side then had the sides chamfered off at 45 degrees.

Using some rotation, I combined and merged six copies of that side to form the best cube to date:

Wk7 - Photofly was a bust...

I tried twice to use Photofly to make the model.

In both instances, the path I used was a circle, rounding the top, then down around the base.

First attempt, using a black background:

The result was a relatively clear model of only two sides.

Second attempt, using a patterned background:

The second attempt produced a model with four good sides.  You can see that the path was again misinterpreted by the program.

In any case, these incomplete models couldn't be easily used to piece together a full cube.  Eventually, after a lot of trying, this method was abandoned.

Wk7 - Physical Object Concept (Autodesk Photo Scene Editor)

I was looking tonight at Autodesk Photo Scene Editor 2.1 (Autodesk Photofly)... I'm thinking that this might be a better way of producing the model of my physical object...  Just need to render out some 360 degree fly over shots...

Wk6 - Crit with Honours - Brilliant!

Crit with the Honours students was brilliant.

It was great that the topic came about about the renders and whether they were actually mine - I'm still not entirely sure but I'm glad some were on the same page as me - in that they are not mine, including Lucien.

One particularly interesting concept was having three components of my work:

1. Mandelbox-inspired model using particles mixed with my objects.
2. Mandelbox fly-thru where the viewer places their head so that it is like they are going through it.
3. A physical version of the same fly-thru mandelbox.

Again infinitely helpful was the clarity to what my work (including past works) has been all about:

• Scale
• Texture (surface)

It's that simple.