Shapeways Ring:

Shapeways Ring

For this project I was assigned to make a ring based on architectural designs or elements. I came up with several designs before choosing one. I ended up choosing to use beams, and decorative beam supports and plates as my inspiration. This assignment was also super cool because we were going to send out our designs to be 3D printed through Shapeways (https://www.shapeways.com/). Shapeways lets users upload designs, print them in different materials (i.e. soft/hard plastics, nylon filament, wax, and even casted in metals), and sell designs as products for user profit through their website.

Research

I started out with four designs that I sketched out after looking up architectural elements I was interested in.

The first design was DNA, I thought about how it was the building blocks of life and therefore counted it as architecture.

As my next design option I thought of a stairs design. Staircases can be super cool and unique and thought that if I used a spiral staircase I could do a really cool ring design.

My third design was of Epcot. Disney has a very sentimental value to me and found myself drawn to this design. I actually created this design in Rhino but had issues creating a final product that could be 3D printed and hope to later return with enough knowledge to be able to fix it.

I ended up choosing to use beams and joists as my final design idea. They are in almost every structure and carry the weight of homes. I feel like this design represents a lot of different things for me especially at this period in my life. I have had a lot of transitions recently and supported my friends and I through some tough situations and feel that the beam design represents me.

Making the Ring

To make the rings I started by first creating beam joists out of triangular shapes and differencing out the inside. Once I was satisfied I replicated them into a long rectangle and differenced a beam shape (pink) out from the inside.

The differencing left me with a hallowed out shape that gave me a base to begin improving and adding details to my design.

Then using the flow command I attempted to make the long beam into a band. This was difficult as the beam kept creating odd edges and did not want to form a proper band.

It took some finessing before I was able to get it into a shape I was happy with. I did have to change my design a bit but feel I am happy with the shape I ended up creating.

From this point I started smoothing out some of the edges with fillet so that the rings would feel comfortable to wear. I came back and added additional detail by putting bolts on one side of the beam ring and notches on the other side so that the two rings could click together.

I am pleased with how they came out despite some of the difficulties I encountered trying to format the beam into a ring shape and in softening the edges without the causing the object to become invalid. If I were to return to this project I would work on making the ring a little thinner and softening the edges. I learned a lot in this project with troubleshooting the repeated problems I had trying to make my rings. I hope to apply my knowledge to create my Epcot and other ring designs I have created. Shapeways is also a tool that I feel can be used in the creation of prototypes for clients in the future as well as making some money off of designs I put on their website.

Ring Renderings

These are my completed rings fully rendered, I have really improved I feel since when I first encountered Rhino but recognize I could still use some work.