Beautiful Complex Geometry possible?

Made on a Glowforge
#1

Hello,

im an architect + artist and sometimes i like to push technology to its limits :joy:

I use my glowforge to prototype my projects, I’ve recently dove really deep into geometry and managed to create a SUPER DUPER complex design and was wondering what is the best way to make this into reality.

I’ve been having trouble with it for months now, i keep simplifying the design until it became dull. im going to share one of the 8 panels i designed in the hope that your beautifully bright minds can help me with the best way to tackle this issue :smiley:

file format sugestions and perhaps if i should raster or expand the vectors and join them ? any help will go a long way

thank you

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#2

Well now that you’ve got our attention… Where’s the file? A zipped .SVG is usually best, but you may also want to add a raster image for casual thinkers.

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#3

“complex” can mean lots of things. 2-d work versus 3-d work is where complexity can go from “manageable” to “omg this is a nightmare”.

Look forward to seeing your design.

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#4

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#5

OK just looking, the resolution on this picture is pretty low, but if it’s islamic line art (like it appears to be), you’ll be pushing some serious density. Basically the GF laser has roughly the resolution of a laser printer, so if you are pushing too much detail to get good results on a laser printout, it’ll be similarly muddy on the GF.

And that’s if we’re talking engraves. With cutting, how “detailed” your cuts can be depends a lot on the material. Too detailed can lead to fire risks, etc.

Anyway, as of now, I’m afraid there’s not much more advice I can offer; I’d need to see much higher resolution images and more detailed explanations of what you’re up to before I would know what to say.

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#6

That looks awesome, I imagine one of two things are (or will be) going on with this.

  1. LOTS of SMALL details in the space. Depending on how large you are trying to make this, the GF has given up processing designs after the execution time has exceeded 3 hours.
  2. If you are able to get this to laser onto some material, keep in mind that you would be burning this into your material. I can see a LOT of potential for charring/melting/mess. I don’t know that this will turn out the way you want.

But I so want to be wrong. This looks amazing and I’d love to see this on something. If you were to score everything, you MIGHT be able to get away with it.

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#7

im uploading the file as we speak :slight_smile:

is a we transfer link ok ?

id love it if you guys can keep these files private please :pray:

#8

i actually ended up doing a very simple design on 1 meter by 1 meter panels, and i feel my failure was providing my laser executioner the right simple file for a large scale industrial laser !

i still would love to do the complex one, its why i need help understanding

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#9

[heres the we transfer files :)] (https://wetransfer.com/downloads/1c82a57ff579ee6af3eb391c9199212b20180912152608/d42d48bdaa781edcee678bdf4e64aeae20180912152608/a4c16e)

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#10

NICE. I’ve done something sort of similar (BUT FAR more simplistic…) here. The thing I ran into was where all the lines crossed. Each time the laser crossed over the same point, it burnt the area a little larger, deeper and I lost clarity.

To fix it, you could essentially “break” all but one line going through the cross point so that you don’t get too much burning in a single spot, it makes it better, but not perfect. With your design, unless you can automate that kind of edit, I think it would take WAY too long to do.

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#11

That is very cool, but you are going to struggle to get it to lase at all, and definitely going to struggle with it as a vector.

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#12

oh thats pretty cool ! you have a E8 Lattice like design.

my earlier prototypes look like coasters too check it out

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#13

There’s a bunch of cool geometric prior art on here…

one of mine:

Anyway, your design is really cool, it’s just very dense. you’ll struggle with the GF.

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#14

i found that exporting as a dwg then importing then exporting again removed those double lines.

its like intersecting selected or explode the complex geometry in Sketchup but waaaay quicker

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#15

oooo I like them! Mine was based off of creating different designs only using points around the edge of a circle and straight lines. Lots of cool effects you can do with that and varying the number of points on the edge, and then choosing which lines to draw.

I really like the other effects you are putting in yours! And combining them to make yet MORE cool designs together! Very cool

#16

oh I’ll have to try that.

#17

thats really beautiful, like a inner 3d print, reminded me of ERIC STANDLEYhttp://www.eric-standley.com that does this with paper

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#18

What you started to draw is known as the most beautiful shape in mathematics, its called simply E8.

a 2 dimential projection of two 4 dimensional object thats a 8 dimensional lattice that could be perhaps the very nature of our reality according to emergence theory :joy:

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#19

I had no idea I was doing something so fancy sounding :wink:

It’s just something I came up with when I was a young kid when I was bored in class. Drew a Circle, did the normal crossed lines. Then bisected those lines so it was in 8 pieces, then drew lines from where the lines intersected the circle to the other ones. It grew from there to what you see now.

Never knew it had a fancy name or mathematical meaning to it! Thanks!

#20

reality is so simple you can draw it on sand with a stick, rope.

don’t ever question your ability to create beautiful things :smiley:

play with connecting 2d shapes from points using the circle tool on sketchup and changing the number fo segments, you will unlock the universe.

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