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I’ve been interested in Voronoi diagrams for a long time: I really like the organic cellular structure they create.
I ran across a set of pluigins for Maya called SOuP that allow for the ‘shattering’ of 3d mesh via a Voronoi algorithm. I set about to writing a Python script I could apply to any volumetric polygonal solid in Maya to apply this shatter (the by-hand process is over on my Mel Wiki), and this vase was the first usable version I came up with: I modeled the smooth “interior” section of the vase first, and then generated a slightly larger version which I ‘shattered’, and booleaned the two together. It is now a trendy art-piece in my bathroom window. For the pics with the blue-glow, I just dropped a small LED in there .

Note, it is not water-tight: Just for fun I filled it with water: There’s still some sloshing around now inside the print…

• Printed with ‘natural’ PLA on Makerbot Replicator, using “medium” settings in Makerware
• Extruded at 210 deg, HPB off
• 2 shells, 5% infill
• Printed in about 5.5 hours, weights 85g, which works out to $1.91 in filament cost (for a $45 spool).

You can download the .stl for printing over on Thingiverse

I had some other experimental prints dealing with Voronoi shattering that led up to this one, which you can see in the below image:

• The print on the far right was my first attempt:  That was 12 hours in, before the printer stopped extruding  But it shows off some of the cool infill patterns and support materials:  It was a little over 3″ cubed, had it finished.
• The print 2nd from the right printed successfully:  I did a full volumetric shatter on another smaller cube.  I duplicated the object in Maya:  One of the objects I did the process where I convert the wireframe to a polygonal solid via blobby-particles.  the other object I strategically deleted different Voronoi chunks, and then merged the two together.  The final version looks like random polygonal volumes held together by spider-webs.
• The remaining prints are unrelated, but make a nice backdrop

Modeled in Maya while sitting at a coffee shop near Stanford (man did I feel like I fit some sort of stereotype). After working on “Geo Necklace“, I wanted to try something slightly more complicated. This “bracelet” is two combined tori: The base is 8-sided, the top is 6-sided. No overhang issues, but I did have to pick out some interior loose filament. Spray-painted it two-tone blue/red.

Stats:

• Printed on Makerbot Replicator.
• Successfully printed in ‘natural’ PLA with “medium” settings in Makerware:
• Extruded at 210 deg, HBP off.
• 2 shells, 10% infill (presuming there is any infill at al).
• Took 50 minutes to print, used 13g of PLA.

You can download the .stl file over on Thingiverse.

After talking with some of the modeling staff at work last week, I was provided a technique for turning the edges of polygonal mesh into physical volumes.  I talk about this process on my mel wiki.  As a proof of concept in Maya , I took a simple polygonal cylinder, stuck some deformations on it (lattice, nonlinear bend), and applied this technique. I like the concept of physically generating structures based on the 3d vert/edge connections.

The result was simple, but pretty cool:  I have to say it feels… odd… to be holding a physical representation of a polygonal mesh.  I’ve been involved with 3d development for going on 18 years now, and this is the first time I’ve actually ‘held’ a ‘polygonal primitive’.  I hope to expand upon this technique with more complex mesh.  One hurdle I must overcome is that of overhangs (one that all additive 3d-printers dread):  I had to do a fair amount of cleanup after the fact based on all the horizontal edges with slightly changing elevations: There was a lot of loose filament hanging down that needed to be trimmed :-S

You can download the .stl for print over on Thingiverse.

Stats for the print:

• Printed in “medium” quality in Makerware in ‘natural’ PLA, on Makerbot Replicator (uno).
• Extruder 230 deg. HPB off.
• 10% infill, 1 shell, .27 layer height.
• Printed in 2 hours, 49 min.
• As printed, 3 1/4″ across, about 4 1/2″ tall.
• Print time: 2hr, 49min.