6. COMPUTATIONAL COUTURE¶
REFERENCES AND INSPIRATION¶
MIT Quasi-textile project overview
jeff barr 3D Print Fabric Tips
These are a few Research Topics / People doing cool stuff in the industry / and companies trying to scale up 3d printed products
TOOLS¶
SOFTWARE¶
3D PRINTERS¶
Prusa i3 mk 2¶
Bambu labs A1¶
PROCESS AND WORKFLOW¶
I redesigned my logo in rhino to be mathematically symmetrical as was shown in an in class tutorial recreating a chess piece. By using the circle method on all my curves I was able to make a logo design following these steps.
Here is an example of the twitter logo brief by the original designer Martin Grasser
I took this 2d version of my logo and converted it to 3D using mostly the extrude and revolve tool in rhino to raise my logo into a curved hemi-sphere version.
RHINO / Grasshopper¶
Grasshopper was, at first, very overwhelming. i ended up using the above code to create a logo monogram by changing the amount of rows and the spacing.
I did try to use some more advanced nodes to change the size based on a curve, but in the end i didnt like how it looked so i stuck with the basics.
3D PRINTING SET UP¶
I ended up doing two styles of 3D textile printing.
-Printing fabric itself using TPU
-Printing on fabric using the sandwich technique with PLA
Difference Between PLA and TPU¶
PLA (Polylactic Acid):
A biodegradable, rigid thermoplastic derived from natural sources like corn starch.
Easy to print with, low heat resistance, and brittle.
Best for prototyping or decorative objects.
TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane):
A flexible, elastic thermoplastic with excellent durability and abrasion resistance.
Requires more precise printing settings due to its elasticity.
Ideal for parts requiring flexibility, like phone cases or wearable devices.
One thing I noticed was that because I scaled down my design to save time, I did lose a lot of detail as i was using the “normal” setting for layer size and fidelity. If i did another iteration I would use the “fine” setting
The second print I did using the sandwich method.
Starting the print, letting it print a few layers.
Stopping, adding fabric, adhered to base plate with clips and restarting the print.
I had a few errors with my clips and was worried it had lost its alignment so I had the idea to just stop the print and restart it so it would start over and be realigned.
This meant that I had to raise the extruder nozzle up slightly as the fabric and first layers were in place.
In the future i want to look into ways to stick the fabric to the plate without the use of clips that are very finicky and have the potential to damage the print and the machine.
FINAL RESULTS¶
