Technology
I spent a good part of my life working in the software business. So no surprise that I’m always looking for ways technology can make things better, faster or sometimes even possible. I’ve realized that both software and additive manufacturing are great connectors, bridges from what I can think up to what I can actually create. Software allows me see how pieces connect, it allows me to speak the same language with a range of vendors and often to visualize what is practical and possible. The only fault of software is perfection - every angle, every dimension, every hole - perfect. For me at least the physical world has proved to be far less perfect so I’m always adjusting. Additive Manufacturing is also a connector, quite literally, both inside the sculpture and the fixtures we make that hold pieces, often at odd angles, for precise machining. Additive manufacturing is allowing to me render shapes and designs that would be wildly more difficult if not impossible with metal.
Software - Autodesk Inventor
This may be the single most important tool of the many I use to create sculpture. Many people have heard of AutoCad from AutoDesk, the tool that computerized flat 2D architectural drawings world wide. Inventor was the next stage of that evolution, designed for three dimensional parts and assemblies. It’s has been used to design everything from fighter jets to oil refineries. In sculptural work I barely scratch the surface.
While almost all of my designs start with a drawing on paper with ink, those images are quickly moved to Inventor. Once in Inventor I can very quickly mock up a complete sculpture and animate that work to see how it moves and to ensure that all moving elements clear each other. Inventor would be invaluable if that’s all it did but it there’s a lot more.
All of the parts rendered by Additive Manufacturing come from Inventor. Those parts can be plastic fixtures or carbon fiber structural elements. Certain pieces like the Ribbon Lamps and the Leaf Trees use Stainless Steel sheet metal that is laser cut by a third party and all of those instructions - drawings turned into digital instructions - come from Inventor.
Finally, Inventor will allow me to completely detail a sculpture in every way from large sheets of thick aluminum down to set screws, nuts and bolts. All vendors of things like bearings and drive shafts and set screws also provide compatible 3D drawings that Inventor can directly Import. My areas for future exploration include photo-realistic renderings of animated models and then placing those animations into photographs of possible locations.
Additive Manufacturing
Additive Manufacturing is another name for 3D Printing and I’ve used several different 3D printers in support of the sculpture.
Pictured above on the right is a very recent yet traditional 3D printer from Creality that works with several kinds of plastics or filaments. In the past this printer has been used mostly in support roles to create fixtures and holders for metal that was to be machined and cut. It’s also been great for supports to hold pieces in place for adhesive procedures. Because of it’s size I’ve also started to play around with the idea of pieces being entirely 3D printed. See Blue Taurus.
The printer on the left by Markforged is an entirely different animal - rather than traditional plastics it prints a hybrid combination of nylon and chopped carbon fiber that’s just about as strong as aluminum. While plastic printers can have all kinds of issues related to thermal differences and cooling, the carbon fiber filament has no such issues. Pieces from this printer are accurate enough to be combined with metalwork (meaning accurate to .002 of an inch) and prints at a level of quality that I have no concerns about including these elements in finished sculpture. These carbon fiber pieces are used as internal connectors on many pieces and are visible connectors on the Ribbon Lamp Series