Lace-r Cut Lace : New Textiles 2012

This week our assignment was to: “Write a program, or modify an existing program, to create a two dimensional pattern and use a laser cutter to turn it into a sheet of lace. You are also welcome to then incorporate the lace into a larger design.” My main objective was to try to familiarize myself and learn more about Processing, and Grasshopper as computational tools to generate my designs.

In my first experiment, I wanted to get a dispersion effect with shapes and Grasshopper would be the tool.

Image of Rhino display of Grasshopper program using a point as an attractor

Grasshopper program that produced the design shown above in Rhino

Lace Pattern produced using the layout of the circles.

I made those circles that were unattached (not touching other circles) those that I would cut out of the paper.

My second experiment with Grasshopper involved generating a pattern of circles by relating the radii of circles to an image. Where the pixel is dark, the circle will be small dark pixel, and where bright, the circle will be large.

Image of micro-organisms as the generator of the pattern

Rhino visualization of the image generated program

Grasshopper program that generated the design above

I applied the same rule and allowed circles that were not touching other circles to cut through the material.

After experimenting with Grasshopper, I went on to Processing. I edited programs we were given for some awesome Voronoi diagrams. I experimented with several changes in the program but am only able to put a few of them here.. I must say this though..

I would like to thank Lin Lin for going over with me again the procedure for editing the pdf file in Adobe Illustrator. Click here for notes on How to edit your file in Illustrator, AND on how to export to a .dwg file sans a million hatches.