6. Computational Couture¶
Research & Ideation¶
- Pinterest Images
- Julia Karas's Computational Couture Outcome↗
- Iris Van Herpen↗
Following Julia’s talk I felt very inspired for what was to come for the rest of the week… her pieces were so beautiful and perfectly executed, I’d never considered the concept of 3D printing on textile. It brought such a unique, dynamic aspect to the garments. Although it is not particularly my style and I can’t necessarily see myself pursuing this in the future, I was very excited to learn the processes and techniques involved. I was particularly fascinated by Julia’s use of Biomimicry, a concept I have always been very interested and inspired by.
BIOMIMICRY is the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modelled on biological entities and processes.
Setae↗ and Biomimicry Images by Julia Koerner.
The Symbolism of Crocodiles¶
Crocodiles carry powerful symbolic meanings across many cultures symbolizing resilience, adaptability, and protection. Although they aren’t my favourite animal, I wanted to look at them in a different light… Not only are their textures and patterns beautiful, they are one of the oldest surviving species, existing over 200 million years. Their scales represent evolutionary perfection and resilience and so when considering Biomimicry, their pattern symbolizes durable, adaptive textiles.
The outfit pictured bloew is from the third - fourth century Romans, consisting of a helmet and cuirass, both made of sewn crocodile skin, possibly used for cultic activities. This is a physical example of how crocodile skin has been used as a textile in the past. For this week, I wanted to focus more on the form of the skin, mimicking the network of scales or scutes, with the consideration of natural form and parametric design.
Crocodile Armour, British Museum↗
Parametric Design¶
Parametric comes from the word parameter - which just means a variable you can control. Designing systems, not fixed shapes. Crocodile skin is a natural example of a smart surface design, it’s both strong and flexible. In 3D printing, I began to think about how these ideas can inspire textiles that adapt, where the pattern or thickness of scales changes depending on how the fabric should move or protect. Tying in my inspiration from the dynamic textiles of Julija Karas, Iris Van Herpen and pinterest.
Hand-drawn Design (Conventional)¶
Before going all in with Parametric Design within Grasshopper, I wanted to create one organic, hand-drawn design that was more realistic to the shapes and form of the crocodile. My overall design was inspired by the example below from Pinterest. This is the process of me tracing the design, to making it into a file suitable for the 3D printer.
Vectorized in Inskscape and then imported as an .svg into Rhino3D.
This was a simple process of importing and then using the Extrusion and Cap tool to solidfy the drawing into a 3D model.
Preparing the file for the 3D Printer¶
Working with PrusaSlicer.
- Import .stl file
- Select correct Printer and Filament settings
- Edit scale e.g. 120 x 120mm and 3mm high
- Choose Infill e.g. 30%
- Add a pause to add the textile
- Slice
- Export as .gcode
Understanding the Different Filaments¶
Table from Snapmaker;s Filament Library↗
- I decided to go for PLA for its ease to print, environmentally friendliness and strength. The elasticity of the filament didn't really matter to me due to the design of my textile. I wanted to maintain the flexibility of the textile so I inverted the positive and negative of the grid pattern to avoid rigidity from the plastic. This worked really well.
Using the Prusa Core One 3D Printer¶
I had never used a 3D printer before so this was all very new to me and exciting. It wasn't too complicated so I felt very comfortable with it. I found it a very satisfying process.
PAUSE. Add the textile and tape it down flat. Try and be quite quick with this so the bed doesn't cool down and you ensure a stronger connection. RESUME.
Once finished... leave to cool and gently peel and scrape model off. Voila. - Unload the filament and cut end so it is ready for the next person.
The Final Hand-drawn Design Outcome¶
120 x 100 x 4 mm
Parametric Design (Computational)¶
Working with Grasshopper and Rhino3D. Grasshopper is a visual programming language that integrates with Rhino3D to enable parametric design. Rhino is the visual object of the systems. Within Grasshopper instead of direct manipulation, we build algorithms by connecting "nodes" that represent data and operations to achieve a final result.
Change the perameters within Grasshopper, visualise within Rhino and then Bake it to fix it in place.
Designing a system, not a fixed shape.
Learning the Basics of Grasshopper¶
Understanding Inputs and Outputs - the Anatomy of a Definition↗
Above are the notes and screenshots I took during Asli's demo of Grasshopper. I found this all really daunting and difficult to get a grasp of... I still don't feel very confident with the software but it was important for me to understand the basic functions before I began planning my parametric interpretation of crocodile skin.
My Parametic Process within Grasshopper¶
I followed this YouTube Tutorial↗ to get my visualised Parametric Design. I felt the distorted grid had very basic similarities to the scales of a croc. I found the tutorial really helpful and a lot less overwhelming than trying to do it alone. I followed it step by step, carefully making sure I was putting all definitions together correctly to avoid any issues that were difficult to untangle. As a beginner, following a tutorial was gamechanging. That being said, I still encountered a few issues... I will touch on those below.
The video below shows a timelapse of a few sections of my process. This is a good visualisation of Grasshopper (right) and Rhino's (left) relationship.
The Final Parametric Files¶
MY GRASSHOPPER FILE EXPLAINED.
Each grouped section has it's own fuction, all of which work together within the same system. This is a really good way of understanding all the different roles and how I got to where I did. I asked Chatgpt to give me definitions for the functions I used, see within Fabrication files footnote.
As you can see, the offset function at the end is red... this means there is an error within the definition. Asli and I had alot of issues with this and never quite got to the bottom of what was wrong. I was getting random lines poking out that shouldn't be there and the offset function didn't offset correctly or efficiently.
Asli fixed this by simplyfing and joining the curves (within Curve Refinement & Offset Operations) and ... You can see one piece of the outcome did not work (the gap). This is a sign of the offset error.
Things I learnt :
- Use the List and Panel functions to help untangle errors. It helps show you the inputs and outputs of the function and see where things may be going wrong.
- Flattening simplifies the tree (of outputs) by making them the same. They need to be the same to work together.
- Curve refinement is important for making smoother curves.
Preparing for 3D Printing¶
[following the same process as outlined earlier]
The Final Parametric Design Outcome (Computational)¶
120 x 120 x 2 mm
Fabrication files¶
File: Hand-drawn Crocodile Design.stl↗ File: Parametric Crocodile Design.stl↗ File: Grasshopper file↗ Chatgpt(PDF)↗