Utah, AI & 3D Printing - Oh My...

[vr...@optonline.net]

One might say that this email is long overdue - as it does indeed have to do with my travels across the USA as I moved from SoCal to Ohio. But, there was a good reason for the delay...

 

So, as I lifted up stakes & Hit the Road to go Back across the USA again - my 1^st stop was Utah. OF course, a Great reason to stop there was my good buddy Joe - the 3D Printing Professor. It was my 2^nd time to visit him in Utah at the Maker Space in the Library where he worked - to oversee the Maker space. He's ALWAYS a Fun guy to hang out with. This was a shot of the 2 of us hanging out in the Maker Space:

 

So, whilst we were hanging out - and talking all about 3D Printing stuff - I brought up this one project of mine that I keep trying to get back to. A project where I have gone down a NUMBER of paths, in regards to the design of the shape. The 1^st iterations of the design actually started back in like 2011-12, after I built my CupCake 3D Printer. 

 

At one point, I tried a different approach to the design - by simply sculpting it in something like Sculptris - to 3D Sculpt the 3D shape in the computer. I did this one version of the design, and I printed 1^st down in San Diego at SD3D. But, getting the chance to 3D Print it at Essentium - where I could print it REALLY Big - that was COOL and FUN to do. This was that print as it had just completed on the Essentium printer:

 

Anyway - as I was discussing the project with Joe the 3D Printing Professor at his Maker Space job - and he then took at quick shot at doing the design in Blender - as we were throwing ideas around. But - here's the Delema...

 

I have 3 main requirements for this design:

All branches of the tree must be hollow - so a wire can be dropped down thru a tree branch tip - and go all the way down to the root of the structure. 

It needs to be printable without supports. 

It MUST be Very Easy to do design iterations - such that maybe a single design iteration must take like 5-10min each - so that I can produce 500-1000 versions of the design, and even more.

 

So, first Joe jumped on a PC and booted up Blender - and did a little work to see if he could come up with an easy way to do it. But, there were issues with that attempt. Then suddenly he jumped up, wiped clean this whiteboard and started drawing and discussing his design algorithm - which, once I had completely wrapped my mind around what he was trying to do - I realized it was BRILLIANT! This was his whiteboard sketching:

 

I did ask Joe in another thread if he minded if I posted this - but, I didn't hear back - and figured it would be fine...

 

Now, I won't go into the entire algorithm - but, will give a brief rundown of it. In the end, the idea would be to Directly generate GCode. Briefly, one would generate circles, stacked up. But, then - the circles would split and move apart - and thus the branching. Think of it like a human baby growing, and how you have a single cell, then it splits, and each sub-cell then splits again, and so forth. 

 

I first began exploring this project by doing it in FoxPro. And, I made some progress on it. From drawing circles, to drawing 2 circle intersections, but, also make it so that when they overlap - the circles are not drawn in the intersecting area. This is a screenshot of the one program, in VFP, the drawn circle & not drawing it in the overlap area:

 

Admittedly, the progress with FoxPro coding was a bit slow. And, I began to see more complications with it.  And, I was even using AI to assist with doing it.

 

I then decided to try a different route. As in, still using Joe's algorithm concept - but, NOW - doing it via OpenSCAD.  And, do accelerate the whole project - I again turned to me new best buddy - Jean Claude von Ay-Eye.

 

I began doing things in steps. I first wanted to see if I could get Claude to just generate a squat hollow cylinder - based upon parameters like inner diameter, height, wall width - things like that. It did. Then, I figured, let's see if I can have it generate a Cone - but, via these stacked cylinders diminishing in size - as that's basically how I would grow the tree. And - it did:

 

Then, next - I wanted to work on the concept of the circle splitting apart - like in the FoxPro shot above - and I got success:

 

And, for anyone curious as to some of the OpenSCAD code being generated by AI which I am using - here's the Script for the pic above:

// Two connected hollow cylinders with all internal space empty

 

// Variables for easy modification

inner_diameter = 83;  // Inner diameter in mm

outer_diameter = 85;  // Outer diameter in mm

height = 10;           // Height in mm

shift_distance = 47;   // Distance to shift the second cylinder in mm

extra_height = 0.2;   // Extra height for inner cylinders to ensure clean subtraction

$fn = 100;            // Set the number of facets for smooth circles

 

// Create the final shape using difference

difference() {

    // Outer shape - union of two cylinders

    union() {

        // First outer cylinder at origin

        cylinder(h = height, d = outer_diameter, center = false);

       

        // Second outer cylinder shifted to the right

        translate([shift_distance, 0, 0])

        cylinder(h = height, d = outer_diameter, center = false);

    }

   

    // Inner shape to be subtracted - union of two cylinders

    // Vertically centered and slightly taller

    translate([0, 0, -extra_height/2]) {

        union() {

            // First inner cylinder at origin

            cylinder(h = height + extra_height, d = inner_diameter, center = false);

           

            // Second inner cylinder shifted to the right

            translate([shift_distance, 0, 0])

            cylinder(h = height + extra_height, d = inner_diameter, center = false);

        }

    }

}

 

 

So, now that I had code in place that could generate a cone by stacking cylinders, and code that could indeed create what looked like a cylinder splitting and moving apart - I now wanted to combine both methods. Have start creating the tree structure by stacking the cylinders and reducing the diameter - but, along the way - start splitting. The following shows that in progress, 1^st split at 130 height, 2^nd at 360, total height of 500:

 

Anyway - still working on it. Will keep folks posted as I make more progress!

 

-K

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

DARN - I didn't know all the pics would Disappear - or appear as Broken-Links! UGH...

Time to Rectumfy the situation!!!

One might say that this Posting is long overdue - as it does indeed have to do with my travels across the USA as I moved from SoCal to Ohio. But, there was a good reason for the delay...

 

So, as I lifted up stakes & Hit the Road to go Back across the USA again - my 1^st stop was Utah. OF course, a Great reason to stop there was my good buddy Joe - the 3D Printing Professor. It was my 2^nd time to visit him in Utah at the Maker Space in the Library where he worked - to oversee the Maker space. He's ALWAYS a Fun guy to hang out with. This was a shot of the 2 of us hanging out in the Maker Space:

 

So, whilst we were hanging out - and talking all about 3D Printing stuff - I brought up this one project of mine that I keep trying to get back to. A project where I have gone down a NUMBER of paths, in regards to the design of the shape. The 1^st iterations of the design actually started back in like 2011-12, after I built my CupCake 3D Printer. 

 

At one point, I tried a different approach to the design - by simply sculpting it in something like Sculptris - to 3D Sculpt the 3D shape in the computer. I did this one version of the design, and I printed 1^st down in San Diego at SD3D. But, getting the chance to 3D Print it at Essentium - where I could print it REALLY Big - that was COOL and FUN to do. This was that print as it had just completed on the Essentium printer:

 

Anyway - as I was discussing the project with Joe the 3D Printing Professor at his Maker Space job - and he then took at quick shot at doing the design in Blender - as we were throwing ideas around. But - here's the Delema...

 

I have 3 main requirements for this design:

1. All branches of the tree must be hollow - so a wire can be dropped down thru a tree branch tip - and go all the way down to the root of the structure. 
2. It needs to be printable without supports. 
3. It MUST be Very Easy to do design iterations - such that maybe a single design iteration must take like 5-10min each - so that I can produce 500-1000 versions of the design, and even more.

 

So, first Joe jumped on a PC and booted up Blender - and did a little work to see if he could come up with an easy way to do it. But, there were issues with that attempt. Then suddenly he jumped up, wiped clean this whiteboard and started drawing and discussing his design algorithm - which, once I had completely wrapped my mind around what he was trying to do - I realized it was BRILLIANT! This was his whiteboard sketching:

 

I did ask Joe in another thread if he minded if I posted this - but, I didn't hear back - and figured it would be fine...

 

Now, I won't go into the entire algorithm - but, will give a brief rundown of it. In the end, the idea would be to Directly generate GCode. Briefly, one would generate circles, stacked up. But, then - the circles would split and move apart - and thus the branching. Think of it like a human baby growing, and how you have a single cell, then it splits, and each sub-cell then splits again, and so forth. 

 

I first began exploring this project by doing it in FoxPro. And, I made some progress on it. From drawing circles, to drawing 2 circle intersections, but, also make it so that when they overlap - the circles are not drawn in the intersecting area. This is a screenshot of the one program, in VFP, the drawn circle & not drawing it in the overlap area:

 

Admittedly, the progress with FoxPro coding was a bit slow. And, I began to see more complications with it.  And, I was even using AI to assist with doing it.

 

I then decided to try a different route. As in, still using Joe's algorithm concept - but, NOW - doing it via OpenSCAD.  And, to accelerate the whole project - I again turned to me new best buddy - Jean Claude von Ay-Eye.

 

I began doing things in steps. I first wanted to see if I could get Claude to just generate a squat hollow cylinder - based upon parameters like inner diameter, height, wall width - things like that. It did. Then, I figured, let's see if I can have it generate a Cone - but, via these stacked cylinders diminishing in size - as that's basically how I would grow the tree. And - it did:

 

Then, next - I wanted to work on the concept of the circle splitting apart - like in the FoxPro shot above - and I got success:

 

So, now that I had code in place that could generate a cone by stacking cylinders, and code that could indeed create what looked like a cylinder splitting and moving apart - I now wanted to combine both methods. Have start creating the tree structure by stacking the cylinders and reducing the diameter - but, along the way - start splitting. The following shows that in progress, 1^st split at 130 height, 2^nd at 360, total height of 500:

 

Anyway - still working on it. Will keep folks posted as I make more progress!

 -K

[Bill Rockhold]

Welcome to Ohio!

Bill

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[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

OMG - Another Ohio person - COOL! Nice to meet you Bill!

Are you at least close to Cleveland? I suspect probably not...

-K

[Bill Rockhold]

Nice to meet you. I'm in the Columbus area. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/ea53af53-279e-493e-972f-b246622c7a56n%40googlegroups.com.

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Cool! That's only like 2.5Hrs drive south!!!

Pick a Brewery there and we shall have to meet up soon!

-K