A good friend of mine has created a program in Qbasic that takes user inputs and creates 3D wave forms that he then machines in aluminum. Here's a link to some photos. NICE WORK JEFFREY!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreygarman/48315061/

That is very interesting work!

Scott

Welcome shawncnelson
that’s very impressive! Are all the pieces in the “Soy Wax Molds of Sculpture”
photo produced from the same program? And are the pictures of the Kaliedescope are they made in a program or a picture
jm

That's a commercially viable product! Your friend might want to contact a company like www.interlam-design.com and see if they would be willing to buy his code, market his designs, or pay him royalties for the designs.

I like it!

yes, his soywax and aluminum pieces all use the same process/program. I'll see if I can get him to post here.

I think the Kaliedescope pics are a photo trick.

Thanks Shawn -

I post on CNCzone often actually, (and yet i'm still a chip sweeper). Most of the time my posts are to ask questions about software/hardware DIY cnc stuff. I respond to my own posts all the time. It's like im talking to myself. Im in the middle of setting up an ENCO Column mill CNC retrofit that I bought for a shop space I share with some other people. I've run it with TurboCNC a few times and am now setting up another computer with a realtime linux install and the EMC controler.

I maintain an online webpage slash gallery @ www.jeffreygarman.com ...

Check it out - please leave comments - I'm not a self promoter usualy cause I stick my foot in my mouth all the time! Plus my spelling and grammer sucks! I am very busy right now, and any time I spend messing around with my machine is time I should be spending studying. But thankyou for starting this thread!

Hello wholepair,
To get out of being a chip sweeper you have to post over a hundred times then you become an apprentice.
Hope the studying doesn’t get to much in the way of the serious work of using the cnc ;)
james

Well - if its a mere matter of numbers then I will start posting more trivial messages - like:

Thanks for the info James!
:banana: :banana: :banana:

This reminds me of that Gwen Staffanie song.
BANANAS
Im not your holaback boy - how do you spell holaback?

2

Actually, you can go into your profile and call yourself whatever you want.
Wave form Master, for example.

I think CNCzone should qualify thier chipsweeper to apprentice transition a little better - we've all heard the phrase (Quality before Quantity)

So how about if there is a method of "Quality Assurance" involved.

Maybe take into account message usefullness - length - word/count - understandability - let people rate messages - etc

I dont't know - just a thought...

3

Oh - I see: Thanks Buscht

4

Thanks Shawn -

I post on CNCzone often actually, (and yet i'm still a chip sweeper). Most of the time my posts are to ask questions about software/hardware DIY cnc stuff. I respond to my own posts all the time. It's like im talking to myself. Im in the middle of setting up an ENCO Column mill CNC retrofit that I bought for a shop space I share with some other people. I've run it with TurboCNC a few times and am now setting up another computer with a realtime linux install and the EMC controler.

I maintain an online webpage slash gallery @ www.jeffreygarman.com ...

Check it out - please leave comments - I'm not a self promoter usualy cause I stick my foot in my mouth all the time! Plus my spelling and grammer sucks! I am very busy right now, and any time I spend messing around with my machine is time I should be spending studying. But thankyou for starting this thread!

I love your website and all the items that you have made. Wish that I could make those items.

I never did figure out how to leave comments on your web site. I would type my name in the box and then click OK. Nothing happened. If I tried to type my name and leave the comment in the box, I received an error. Anyway, I didn't figure it out.

Loved your work. Museum quality.
Jerry

CJL5585

Im sorry you had problems leaving comments, thanks for the accolades.
Coppermine is open-source, and there-fore it has alot of 'features'...

Lately I've been useing flickr more and more and more and more.

try:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreygarman/show/

There comments functionality is superb.

What kind of software are you using to generate the wave patterns? I saw portions of the basic code that called some files off the C drive which were generated by some method.

Also, the circles in the wax appeared to have been superimposed upon the wave pattern by some method. That in itself is interesting to me.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Looked at the latest site. Really amazing.

By the way, what is that contraption that looks like a geared servo motor with two steppers (IN SERIES?) attached to the shaft? That is also interesting.

Jerry

What kind of software are you using to generate the wave patterns?

I did this in Lightwave in a few minutes. With a little tweaking, I could probably get similar results to what he had.

wow this stuff is really interesting, I could see this on the walls of a hip new club or something. I would want to cut something like that out of something that air could pass threw and do like a vacuum form of some sort.

ger21

What is Lightwave and what file formats does it support? Can it export to any of these: IGES, SAT, 3DS? Can you write code from it?

oh - I found it. http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/

looks expensive. and cool too. I've experimented with this thing called 3D Blender, it's freeware, but I got frustrated with the learning curve on it. Maybe I will go back to it some day.

I know people who use Maya, http://www.highend3d.com/ , and they can do some real amazing things with it. Send me an iges, or a sat of a surface so I can try to make NC code from it.

CJL5585:

The contraption with the geared stepper motor is a computer controled Heliodon I helped in the building of with an architect.

See:
http://bikegeeks.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-69
This is an explination:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliodon

Hi just chiming in, disregard if not helpful :)

I'm not sure, but Newtek use to have
a scale down version called Inspire3d,
it's basically the same engine just limited
with the rendering resolution, it was targeted
for web designer's I think. It's very tricky
to use since it doesn't use windows interface.
I myself is familiar with Lightwave3d,
learnt it in school some time ago.(not proficient tho).


It still exist: http://www.newtek.com/inspire3d/

Inspire 3D will have a suggested retail price of $195US. Inspire 3D will be available for Windows XP, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Macintosh OS X. A free public beta program for pre-release versions of Inspire 3D is scheduled to begin in Q2, 2005.

Newtek just lowered the price of Lightwave to $795. I have about $2K invested, $1100 + 2 upgrades. I didn't save that model, but when I get a chance I'll post one.

ger21

I've experimented with this thing called 3D Blender, it's freeware, but I got frustrated with the learning curve on it.

Well, I tried Blender about 2 or 3 years ago. Could not figure out any way to use it to create any code useful for a cnc.

I agree with the learning curve. It seems nearly impossible to learn.

Jerry

Very neat stuff.

great job !!!
for interior of s/f ships ;)

I was trying to change my rank/ title, and its possible, but you have to be a gold-member, so if you read the earlier post (don't remember whose) and were trying to change your title, I'm pretty sure that's your problem. Gold member is a 50usd donation, impractical and unaffordable for me, but if your not a student without income (moi) and you frequent cnczone its probably worth it. (It gives you some other stuff too; I didn't read much past the 50$ :))

That is beautiful art. My favorite is the aluminum piece hanging in the wood frame.

I did something similar a few years back when I was working with a glass artist. It is a long story but the short version is I got a job to make graphite molds for poring glass into. This is the first trial mold so we could test the concept out.

http://www.coolfall.com/images/dpreview/P0003117.jpg

poring in the glass

http://www.coolfall.com/images/dpreview/P0003121.jpg

it glows

http://www.coolfall.com/images/dpreview/P0003123.jpg

keeping it from cooling too fast

http://www.coolfall.com/images/dpreview/P0003125.jpg

This last mold is similar in size to the one we used for the final run of glass. I got the creative bug and decided to try out adding to their shape. So I made the "rain drop falling into water pattern" and added it to the primary wave of the glass.

http://www.coolfall.com/images/dpreview/P0003143.jpg

I may still have the program I wrote and will post it here if anybody is interested in using it. It is a VBA program that runs inside of Autocad. I do not remember all the details right now but I am pretty sure it created a mesh object. I used Hypermill even back then and used it to create the tool path from the mesh.

Cheers
Dave

Dave, what was the material used to make the graphite mold? (graphite plus ??)

Thanks,
Mike

It is graphite pressed into large blocks. You can get it anytime on ebay.

ebay auction (http://cgi.ebay.com/Graphite-Blocks-23lbs_W0QQitemZ7617464637QQcategoryZ26420QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

It is easy to machine but messy. Use carbide cutters, they will ware quickly.


Cheers
Dave

I am so jealous -

Why do you make them in separate blocks? Especialy the last piece? Is there a limit to the size you can pour? How many times can you use the graphite mold?

We have some graphite around the shop, and I had thought of this application but don't know enough about glass to just jump in.

There is this awsome glass arts school in Eugene where I live. I was going to hit them up for inspiration/knowledge/help.

http://www.eugeneglassschool.org/

I like fused glass work. I thought it would be great to layer different colors into the surface of a graphite plate cut with the wave pattern or something similar and then fuse the whole piece(all the colors) together. Though once again I'm not sure if you can put the graphite and the glass into an oven to fuse - obviously you can pour into it but you might not be able to fuse in it - you probably can't let the piece cool in the form either... I have alot to learn - I think I will take a class at the EugeneGlassSchool later this month.

Your stuff is awsome - thanks for sharing!

The last mold makes just one piece of glass because it is filled to the upper edge. I did not design the basic shape the customer did that. I just offered the rain drop pattern for fun.

The graphite molds can be used hundreds of times. However, the web in this mold can self destruct in as little as 20 parts because it is so thin.

This is something you can do at home with the proper equipment, but it requires some basic knowledge of glass working. The course is a must.

Dave