This is kinda obscure, but I've spent the past few days learning all the ways that you *can't* get vector text into Autodesk Fusion 360. Fusion doesn't support text input directly, so I've been creating vector text in Illustrator and then exporting/importing. That's all fine, but there are also some issues in Fusion with importing SVGs... it's a bit unclear. Anyway I'm getting closer:
Manufacturing guy-at-large.
Filtering by Tag: CAD
Can
So, 3dfile.io supports Autodesk Inventor *and* Solidworks files right out of the box. Sketchfab, on the other hand, only does these dumb tessellated formats that all the 3D printing people use.
Note that the body appearances in this viewer actually aren't what I have them as in Inventor; apparently 3dfile.io is applying some sort of changes to the file when I upload it. Regardless, not having to export as a different file format is great. I don't see how I'll be using Sketchfab at all anymore.
Oh. Also, I modeled a can. Pretty neat, huh?
Topper
Recently.
The number and complexity of the surfaces here is just dumb, and it's my fault. I ended up rebuilding it with a solid model, though I'd like to revisit the surface model again.
Manufacturing agnosticity
I came across an interesting quote yesterday in the Wikipedia page for Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing (GD&T):
Descriptions of manufacturing methods should be avoided. The geometry should be described without explicitly defining the method of manufacture.
In context, this makes sense. GD&T has the purpose of making a part that fits the intended purpose, and in an ideal world, manufacturing methods are largely irrelevant to that process. But in the conventional design-manufacture cycle, I think this sets up a poor incentive structure, and hinders communication of key information.
It would be my hope that design tools evolve such that intent can be executed directly. But as it stands now, designers are still largely designing features. The result is that manufactured products carry high setup and switching costs, and often require multiple sample iterations in order to get right.
I admire the intent in the quote above (which, it should be noted, seems not to have been taken directly from the ASME standard), but I think it's a bit optimistic. Until we figure out a new way of incorporating intent directly into design, methods of manufacturing will be highly useful in design data transfer.
ISO should be an open source project
Or, I mean, whatever. I *guess* they can keep trying to get ~$400 from me to see the spec for representing geometric data (ISO 10303-42) in STEP files... but I'm not sure that's sustainable long term. Right?
Seriously, though: What am I missing here? Why are standards bodies organized in ways that seem to specifically prevent small (but potentially motivated) teams from participating? Are the projects they're working on too complex? In light of counterexamples ranging from the Linux kernel to GCC to the Apache web server and Android, I can't see how this is the case. Is it just a matter of entrenched interests refusing to relinquish control of a powerful governing body? Are there examples of similar open-standards projects that I'm not aware of?
Regardless, I wonder what the long term prognosis for standards regulation of this type is. I would *hope* that in ten, fifteen years max I'm seeing these standards in a web browser for free. Am I crazy?
If I am, I hope somebody speaks up :)
I posted a related question on Quora. Answer it!
N.B. It strikes me that my nomenclature might be a little off, and that perhaps there are good examples of open-standards projects in the web world (e.g. W3C). Forgive my ignorance.
STEP files
From Step Tools, Inc.'s excellent overview of STEP purpose, applications and development (emphasis mine):
The ultimate goal is for STEP to cover the entire life cycle, from conceptual design to final disposal, for all kinds of products. However, it will be a number of years before this goal is reached. The most tangible advantage of STEP to users today is the ability to exchange design data as solid models and assemblies of solid models. Other data exchange standards, such as the newer versions of IGES, also support the exchange of solid models, but less well.
But later, in the "Future of STEP" section:
The real issue that stops faster STEP deployment is the commitment of those with the resources necessary to define the standards. The government does not like to pick solutions for industry, and industry does not like to fund the development of solutions that can also be used by their competitors. Consequently, much work only gets funded in situations of clear and desperate need such as when the high cost of manufacturing is causing excessive job losses.
The Internet and the World Wide Web broke through this cycle when "killer" applications made the benefits of the new infrastructure clear and compelling for all users. AP-203 made STEP useful by allowing solid models to be exchanged between design systems. AP-238 will make STEP compelling for some users by allowing them to machine parts more efficiently. However, like the early Internet there will be alternatives that are considered more reliable by other users. The killer application that makes STEP ubiquitous has yet to be identified.
There's a lot of good info on STEP buried in obscure corners of the web. I hope to be summarizing some of my research on the topic soon.
A good afternoon's work
This. Was fun.
Happy Friday, everyone.
Rack Ends: Current design
I'll be writing more about how I'm going about procuring my stainless steel rack ends later, but I wanted to give an idea of the sorts of design files one needs to supply machine shops with in order to get quotes. A dimensioned (and toleranced!) PDF is always key:
N.B., my drawing template is pretty lame right now. Not having standard tolerances listed is a total no-no, but most manufacturers assume +/- .005" on any distance and +/- 1 degree angular - so I should be okay. I really just need to spend a morning setting up a new template, but that's fairly low on my priority list right now. Anyway... do as I say, not as I do.
I also usually include a STP file, but as a rule that's *only* for reference. I suppose that if you had a particularly strong relationship with a supplier and were sourcing a part with *only* standard tolerances, skipping the PDF would be okay... but that's a rare scenario.
Aaaand, thanks to my friends on Twitter, you can see the part in 3D here:
BK1008 Rack End from SpencerWright on Sketchfab.
Chris Anderson on Digital Manufacturing
So, the "Seminars on Long-Term Thinking" podcast is awesome.
Today I became engaged in a conversation about the future of manufacturing. It was in the context of my parts organizer spiel, which I tend to think (self importantly) is the basis of one aspect of a revolution of how we manage data on physical objects. My interlocutor - with a totally healthy degree of skepticism - questioned the breadth of what I was suggesting (which, dear reader, you're just going to have to imagine for now - I don't have the energy to describe it in full here). He pointed to the required complexity of a unifying theory for parts management, and asked to the basic premise that a single standard for parts data was necessary or useful. It was a totally fair line of reasoning, and one which I defended myself against in a marginal way at best.
It was a pure coincidence, then, that I returned home and listened to an excellent talk given by Chris Anderson about digital manufacturing. I'll skip right to the chase here: Anderson begins by describing the NUMMI factory, which was jointly run by GM and Toyota from 1984-2010, when it closed due to market pressure and disputes between its owners. What follows below are Anderson's words (emphasis is mine; photos are from google images):
That was ten, twelve years ago. And then Tesla bought that factory...for a song, and put in place another factory. This is what the Tesla factory looks like:
What you're seeing there looks superficially the same. You're once again seeing machines making cars. But the difference is that the NUMMI machines were custom - each machine did one job. And they were extremely hard to program, and very inflexible, and once you got the whole factory up and running, you didn't want to change it - you just churned it out, one after another. And every machine was different. The welding machines were different from the painting machines which were different from the stamping machines which were different from the sewing machines and the testing machines and the wheel-applying machines, etc.
What you're seeing [at the Tesla factory] is that all of the machines are the same. These are Kuka robotic arms, from Germany...but the point is that they are general purpose robots. Every car can be different. And today, the American car [factories], they could be making washing machines on the same line. These robot arms have these racks of different tool heads, and they can change their functions simply by going and grabbing a different tool, so they can be a welding robot or a bolting robot or a door-closing robot or a wheel-applying robot. And there is hardly a person to be seen on the floor.
What looks like a subtle difference - single purpose, specialized robots vs. general purpose robots - is actually transformative, because fundamentally what this allows is flexibility. And flexibility, I'm going to argue, is the key winning factor of the 21st century. Because flexibility allows you to move faster, it allows you to operate in smaller batches, and it allows you to personalize. Every Tesla can be different...So this is what digital manufacturing looks like on the industrial scale, and that's why this era of automation is different from the other ones.
Anderson goes on to discuss - with infectious enthusiasm - the Maker Movement, distributed fabrication, and his expectations for how manufacturing, creativity, and product development will change in the 21st century. I highly recommend his full talk.
The net effect, though, is this: We need - and I plan on spending as much of my career as possible addressing - more general purpose solutions to the problems associated with hardware development and manufacturing.
My focus on general purpose technologies is a large contributing factor to my wariness about the hype surrounding 3D printing. 3D printing is not a general purpose technology. And every bit of energy spent working on producing a better 3D printer just distracts from the tools that I believe will truly revolutionize hardware development and distribution. We need broader, more powerful tools - tools which interface with all manner of manufacturing processes, and which designers and consumers alike can plug directly into.
The pieces are all here. 3D CAD has trickled down to all manner of consumers. Prototyping tools abound as well - and here I mean not some crappy FDM machine, but services like Rapid Machining and Shapeways. Distribution platforms are there as well, from Shapeways to Kickstarter to Etsy.
What's needed now is to unite these all with a single layer. When all of these platforms speak the same language - and when Makers, designers, and consumers learn to do the same - then the third industrial revolution will begin to take shape.
Patents are insane.
I got sucked in a little today looking at Google Patents. It's really cool to find a design and then look at all the patents filed by the designer. Weirder still if the company is one that makes a product you hold in high regard, viz. LH Thomson, the contract machine shop and venerable manufacturer of bicycle hardware.
On the one hand, Thomson owns an incredibly broad patent for "Object clamp, such as for bicycle component, having at least one relief area and related methods." This would appear to cover not only any split tube clamp, including those on bicycle stems & seatpost clamps (as the patent describes), but also almost any accessory that attaches to a tube, anywhere (disclaimer: I am not an expert in patent law). See fig. 33, below:
If I'm reading this correctly, it's saying that if your split tube clamp has one bore which is of a slightly larger diameter than the diameter of the part you're clamping to, your part is covered by Thomson's patent - at least until 2021, which (I believe) is when it runs out.
On the other, Thomson owns a patent for "Bicycle rider hand attachment and cooperating gear shift actuator and associated methods" that is batshit crazy. The basic idea is that of a gripshifter, but Thomson's version requires the user to wear one of many medieval glove-like contraptions, which interface with the shifter itself. See fig. 15, below:
It should be noted that this is exactly as crazy as it looks - disjointed thumb and all. Or see fig. 6, which installs a shaft onto the rider's hand, to interface with some handlebar-mounted shifting device:
So yeah, anyway: Patents are insane. Are these inventions useful? Are they worth protecting? Is the value of their protection greater - to either LH Thomson or the greater society at large - than the value of open sourcing them? I don't claim to have an answer, but I would be interested to hear arguments for the pro side - it seems a bit specious.
LH Thomson
Pretty cool diagram. From EP0842083 B1, filed 1996.07.30.
Somebody's weird idea.
Found in a Google Patents search today. This is, for anyone counting, patent no. US2013014116A1, filed just a month or so ago by someone named Mu-Rong Li.
More modeling
For reasons I won't go into right now, I spent some time today modeling a Thomson seatpost. It's a fun little project, and one that involves some weird intersecting surfaces. I definitely got some good use out of my radius gage set, and even plunked down to get a new one that goes up to 1" (mine, a Brown & Sharpe set that I got from an old machinist, is 1/32"-1/2").
While I'm excited to check out the new 3D scanners soon (I'm hoping this weekend's Maker Faire will have a couple), manually measuring and modeling something like this is pretty fun. It's interesting to think about the way the geometries work. A Thomson seatpost consists of three main parts, which take a number of manufacturing techniques:
- The post is made from an oblong extrusion. Its OD looks like a circle with a lobe on the front and back, and its ID is an ellipse with its short axis oriented front-back. After being extruded, it's turned down to its finished diameter and milled to accept the saddle cradle and hardware. I'm guessing that both of these operations happen in a cool multiaxis turning center, but they could just as well be done in separate setups.
- The lower cradle is forged. I believe it's also machined, though only on one side and probably just one or two passes.
- The top cradle (not shown - I still need to model it) is also forged. I believe the bolt slots are then machined, and of course the Thomson logo is laser etched after anodization.
The hardware is made by a combination of forging, cold thread forming, turning, and machining. It's also all hardened.
Thomson is a badass manufacturing company. I'm excited to finish this portion of my modeling, which amounts to describing the parts they engineered, and move onto the really cool part - screwing with all of it.
Modeling for SLA
I spent a little while today optimizing my dummy headset for 3D printing. In subtractive manufacturing, cost can often be estimated by calculating the difference between the mass of the raw material and the mass of the finished object. The more material you need to remove, the more fabrication time and resources you'll consume producing the part, and hence the more expensive (generally) it will be.
The cost structure of 3D printing is totally different. With additive techniques, cost is a largely a function of the mass of the finished object (envelope size also has an effect in production settings, but it's less critical). The cost of a part comes down to how long it takes to make, and production time is limited by the amount of material the machine can spit out in a period of time.
As I noted the other day, my dummy headset is a bit more expensive than I'd like it to be. On the upside, though, I can remove material in a bunch of places! I took the revolved part in Inventor and made a series of revolved cuts on the ID of the part. I left some ribs along the ID to keep the perimeter somewhat intact, and left the areas right around the set screw holes thick.
I was able to shave a *lot* of mass off the parts - more than 45% on the lower part - which means significant cost savings.
I still need to make sure I'm on the right track on clearances in a few locations, but cutting the extra material out should make these parts much more feasible. Keep in mind, my total development cost at this point is probably 2.5 hours of labor and $40 in parts. Were I trying to get this product to market quickly (and who knows, I may try doing so) I could be live in both Shapeways' - and my own - webstore within two weeks.
Another 3D Printed thing: Dummy Chris King Headset
I can't justify the cost on this, but with some small modifications I could print a lot of them before I hit the price of the molds I'd need to injection mold them.
Most framebuilders, and a lot of bike shops, will have a frameset (that's frame and fork, for the uninitiated) around the shop for some time before the headset is ready to be installed. Optimally, they're able to be kept together and protected - both from things around the shop and from each other - and the natural solution is to temporarily install the fork in the head tube. For a variety of reasons, though, you don't always want to install a headset just yet, and in those cases it's useful to have a dummy that approximates the size and shape of the headset that you're eventually going to use.
When I was building bikes, I made a batch of dummy headsets out of aluminum on my lathe. It was a fun project, but it took a while and the finished thing didn't look at all like the headsets (usually Chris King) that I was installing on the bikes when they were done. Moreover, a lot of small time builders either don't have access to a lathe or don't have the time/energy/gumption to build dummy headsets themselves.
So I spent an hour or two and modeled this one. It's a damn close copy to a King 1-1/8" NoThreadSet, but SLA printed. I included two holes in the top "cup" that I'll tap out and install set screws in. When the dummy is installed on the frameset, the set screws can be tightened down to keep the whole thing together. Because the dummy is plastic, it won't mar the frame, and because it's dimensionally accurate, it could be used to mock up the steering column for use in rack building, component setup, etc.
I need to make a few small changes to reduce printing mass, but in the meantime the design files for these parts are all in a GitHub repo. If I can find a way to get the cost down a bit, I'm hoping to put them up for sale for other folks to use; drop me a line if you're interested.
Work-ish: 3D printed dropout protectors
I think Nick Pinkston has it absolutely right: "3D printing is great, but it's only a small part of the solution." The current hardware revolution is about the workflow from development to manufacturing to distribution. Sure, I'm sure I'll have more and more 3D printed objects in my life in the next 5-10 years. But the effects of product customization (which will be significant) and kanban/just-in-time manufacturing (which I believe will be huge) will far outweigh the designer's ability to neglect draft angles when designing plastic parts. In the near future, I expect we'll be buying more stuff that hasn't been built yet than we have since the industrial revolution. In the next decade, I expect Amazon (or whomever) to be literally building the parts required to fulfill my order the night after I place the order. 3D printing will be a big part of this process, but so will distributed manufacturing and rapid delivery systems. And innovative ways of finding new products (and, on the flipside, innovative ways of finding new customers) will totally change the game.
I tend to recoil at most of the crap that's made with the current generation of FDM machines, but I've spent some time recently trying to think of objects in my life that I would accept being shat out of a MakerBot. A few traits I was looking for:
- Needs to be made out of plastic
- Needs to be disposable
- Needs to have a rough surface quality (low layer resolution)
- Needs to be something that's hard to find in a brick-and-mortar store
- Relatively low part mass, to reduce print time & cost
- Low dimensional accuracy to accommodate all sorts & conditions of printers
- Bonus points if I wouldn't want to buy it from Amazon due to package quantity, lead time, etc.
I'm sure there are better use cases, but one thing I came up with was dropout spacers. When shipping a bike, you usually remove the front wheel and install a dropout spacer into the fork. The spacer protects the dropouts from impact from below and also protects the fork from impacts from the side. Most consumers don't keep dropout spacers around, and wouldn't necessarily think to go to a bike shop to pick some up (most shops give them away) when they're shipping their bike. When the bike is unboxed on the other end, the spacers usually go straight to the trash, and surface finish is totally inconsequential. Plus, the spacer itself isn't very massive, and the dimensional accuracy required is low.
I spent an hour or two modeling, and got Shapeways to print me the result for $13. It's a bit more than I would want to pay for a piece of plastic, but the FDM version would be basically free. The finished version is shown below. I rather like it, and think that things like it will be printed - not in the home, probably, but by brick-and-mortar third party services like Kinkos, or web shopping platforms like Amazon and Shapeways - as a matter of course in the future.
If anyone is interested in printing one of their own, I'd encourage them to grab the model on the Thingiverse. I also published the model and a bunch of other stuff in a GitHub repository.
GitHub for 3D Design
In the past, I've used Autodesk Vault for version tracking & backup of 3D design files. I was using Inventor for work at the time, and was a part of a group that sometimes (though not often) shared files. It was useful but totally inconvenient, and I'm happy to now be setting up GitHub for my own 3D design file sharing, version control & backup.
Not being fluent with GitHub in the past, I'm still a little hazy on the terminology and process. Over the past few months, I've cobbled together a system or organizing 3D part and assembly files from SolidWorks and Inventor. For some reason, I set up separate folders (named "SolidWorks" and "Inventor") in the "Documents" folder of my hard drive. Inside each of those folders is a bunch of separate project folders. When I create a new project, I choose a two-letter shorthand for the project; the project folders have been named, e.g., "CS Cycles Parts". Inside is a bunch of part and assembly files, and usually a subfolder called "Static Exports" which contains STLs, STPs, PDFs and JPEGs.
I'm doing this all from Windows 7 on Boot Camp, so I downloaded the Windows GitHub client and got started. First, I tried creating a new repository on the GitHub web interface and then adding existing files to it, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out the dialog. Then I realized that I could drag and drop a directory from my hard drive into the desktop GitHub client, but for some reason it kept wanting to reassign the repository to .../Documents/GitHub/. Also, it complained about special characters, so I removed all the spaces from my directory names and replaced them with underscores.
Finally I just created new repositories in the desktop client, but named them the same as the existing project directories. GitHub kept wanting me to put them in the /Documents/GitHub directory, but this time I could change the location to be /Documents/Inventor/ - the parent of the existing repository directory that I was trying to set up.
My first commits all just had titles like "First Posting," and I published the commits immediately. To my immense pleasure, I'm now able to see the contents of those directories in GitHub, and a bunch of the files in the "Static Exports" directories display in Git's STL viewer within the browser.
I'll be interested in seeing how GitHub fits into my design workflow. For now it's - at the very least - a great backup system. I hope it becomes a collaborative tool for me in the near future.
If anyone has tips for how to use GitHub to host design projects, I'd love to hear them.
When to give up your product
Product ideas are free, and if you put any effort at all into finding them, they're strikingly easy to come up with. I keep a list of product ideas that's pages long, and I try to be open about sharing them with friends and potential collaborators. However, there's always the protective instinct there - I don't want to give my ideas out to just anyone, especially if I think they might actually do something with them.
In the past few months, I've been particularly interested in developing new ideas, and have enjoyed talking to anyone else about their own visions. I try to keep an open mind when talking startup shop; it's more fun, for sure, to listen to someone's half-baked pitch with enthusiasm. I think it's also important to be delicate when following up on an idea that strikes me as a good one. Intruding on someone else's project can be dangerous, and I try to be careful to not overstep on a friend's personal flame. In particular, it's important to not try to change the focus of an idea. From personal experience, I know it's all too easy to become protective over what one sees as the core idea of an product, and if someone uses my idea's shell but replaces the seed (the metaphor is a bit of a stretch, sorry), my reaction tends to be defensive.
It strikes me that despite the proliferation of high quality snark surrounding Hyperloop, Elon Musk has made an impressively brave decision in releasing his idea to the public. It takes real guts to put what, by many accounts, is a totally harebrained idea into the ether.
My own ambitions are admittedly smaller. My product list includes a handful of blatant ripoffs (ostensibly with small design improvements, but whatever), lots of generic furniture/EDC items, and is generally full of stuff that's been pretty well picked over. A good portion of my list wouldn't pass the "market need" test. There are more well designed LED flashlights out there than I could shake a stick at; if I haven't found one that's perfect for my needs and meets my aesthetic requirements, that's because I haven't googled hard enough for it.
In the end, a product idea will sink or swim partially on the creators' ability to create a successful marketing platform. Doing so allows otherwise uninteresting product ideas to flourish (this is, IMHO and with no offense intended, how Best Made Co. works). If your product is generic (e.g., an off-the-shelf axe with a painted handle) and relies on an iconic brand image to succeed, then you have nothing to worry from someone else taking your idea.
Ditto if, on the other hand, your product is too large or complex for you to pull off alone. Hyperloop falls into this category. Musk himself is likely too overworked to launch it himself, and anyway would need municipal support that he can't get alone.
From my own list: I want to build a public database of parts - an API that would aggregate specifications from suppliers like Digikey and McMaster-Carr, with a web interface that would allow users to manage the parts they have on hand in their own shops. I see it as an ecosystem for managing inventory and procurement, with IoT opportunities that could change the way that workshops, R&D labs, and warehouses deal with parts on hand. It's a project that's too big for me to take on alone, and if someone builds it while I'm busy boning up on the skills required to complete a small part of it - well, all's fair.
The harder ideas to give up, for me, are the ones that make a big dent in a small workflow in my life. For years, I've lamented the sad state of laundry hampers. I want a hamper to be architectural, and to be made from materials that I'd find elsewhere in my home. I want it to stand on its own, but fold down quickly for trips to the laundromat. And most of all, I want *one* all-purpose device; I see no need to use one container for in-closet storage and another for transport.
A few years ago, I sketched up an idea for a hamper that fit my specifications. It's something that I'm fairly well qualified to build, and wouldn't cost more than $100 in parts and a few hours of my labor to complete. But it remains on my backlog, and it'll likely be there forever.
What do competent, driven designers do with projects like this? Presumably, Quirky was built for just this use case: something that could be a decent idea, but which I just don't have the bandwidth to move forward on a meaningful timescale. But to hand over my baby, however half-baked she is, to Quirky's "design experts?" The whole idea just hurts a little bit. It's silly, but I want the product to be *mine,* whether or not it ever gets built.
Optimally, I think each of us needs a network of collaborators - people who we can work with, for, and against (against is important) in the pursuit of something shippable. Immediate feedback and real, honest enthusiasm are things that Quirky (and Kickstarter, for that matter) isn't very good at, and to many people those are important parts of the design and development process. I'm constantly working on expanding my product development network, but I'll admit that it's still far from where it want to be. And more importantly, my skills at communicating with someone about product ideas - both theirs and mine - are crude, and anyway the ideas that I can bring to the table are mostly harebrained.
How do other designers deal with these issues? I'd love feedback, or simply to connect.
cycles progress
i spent much of the past few days modeling a conical burr grinder. the project requires a number of complex sweep features, which are difficult both to measure and to model, and with which i have limited experience. the process was interesting.
the burr is ceramic (more about this in the future) and has two sets of tapered helical features. the large helices seem to funnel coffee beans down into the assembly and begin to break them down, and the smaller features do most of the work of producing the intermediate and fine grind steps.
the large features seemed - at first - relatively straightforward to design. the profile is easily measurable from the top of the part, and establishing a path (albeit one i would later realize was inaccurate) wasn't too bad. here, i'm applying fillets to all the sharp edges left behind after the sweeps were cut into the base body.
in parts like this, one tends to model a single feature and then apply a pattern on the part using the initial feature as an input. here i'm patterning the small corrugations on the perimeter of the part. i'll do this process a number of times; once you apply the pattern, you'll notice things about the feature that weren't apparent when there was only one occurrence visible. i'll roll back the pattern and modify the underlying feature, and then reapply the pattern again and check out the result.
the real result is that i shouldn't be doing this whole process on a 2008 iMac >> Boot Camp >> Windows 7 >> Inventor: a dedicated windows box would be *way* more efficient. here's to hoping that AutoDesk gets real about some WebGL modeling software?
the only way i know to model these features is by using Sweeps, which require a profile and a path as input. i would prefer to be creating a 3d helical sketch and using that as the path, but i can't for the life of me figure out how to use Inventor's helix creation toolbox on complex shapes like this. instead i've been creating planes that approximate a portion of a helical shape, and then drawing arcs on those planes. it's a pretty hokey setup, but for my purposes it's more or less adequate.
the red lines here are the remnants of one of these sketches, with the part's cut edges projected onto it. on the left, you can see the arc that i'm using to define the small corrugations' path.
honestly, most of this here is overkill. i'll probably end up getting one of these burrs 3D printed, but it's mostly academic at that point: the hard part of my project isn't the burr design, but the software that supports its function.
either way, it was a fun part to model - and a bit above my head, i'll admit. it's still far from perfect - the modeled version isn't nearly as bell-shaped as the original - but i'll let it go for now. after all, i've got the other half of the burr to model now, and it's possible i'll learn something there that'll be applicable to remodeling this half.
my workspace, recently
1. one's primary focus is to understand, and then achieve, what is important to himself.
2. what is important to me is, to a significant extent, my career.
3. most nights, i find it of great importance that i spend a few hours focusing on my career.
4. sometimes, when one is focusing on one's career at night, one needs a drink.
5. white wine is nice in the summer, even if all you've got is a whiskey glass.
6. mic6 tooling plate makes for a pretty nice coaster. also it's useful when you're measuring things.
7. seltzer with a little orange flower water and a slice of lemon is also pretty refreshing.
8. folks who do 3d design and *don't* use a 3d mouse are crazy.
9. moisturizer is important.
10. things that smell a nice way are nice. my candle kinda sucks but it works in a pinch.
1. thumbtacks are cool. i got some aluminum ones that i like, and i like using them.
2. cork is cool. i got some raw cork bark when i was in portugal a few years ago, and i like it.
3. managing a tackboard is weird. also, tacks aren't a great way to hang coiled-up iphone cables, but they work in a pinch.
4. spare buttons are totally inconvenient to keep. so you're at your desk and you just pin them to your tackboard.
5. i've gotten two tickets on my bicycle in the past 6 weeks.
6. books are dying.
7. books are kinda nice.
8. if you're going to make a book, make it specific to paper. paper is a great medium to display high resolution data, which makes it great for graphics, layout, texture, etc. it's not particularly great for words.
9. whatever. i have a couple of books in my place now. i rarely look at them. i did just get the 2012 Feltron Report, which is really beautiful and which i'm super excited about.
10. i live on top of a loud, bright corner. which has its pluses and its minuses.
11. curtains are effective but the means for procuring and installing them are inconvenient, and the design options that are available are limited.
12. linen is available by the yard for pretty cheap. and it lets a nice amount of light in.
13. the street is still loud and bright, but if you want to live with perfect environmental control, you can totally just find a cave and move there.