tesselation (kind of)

[oscarl48]

I'm still playing around trying to learn how to accomplish tessellation patterns for the CW. I have discovered there are several free programs that allow you to create simple and sometimes complex 2d shapes that allow for tessellation.

http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/Tessellate/

http://www.nctm.org/Classroom-Resources/Interactives/Tessellation-Creator/

There are also others you can purchase for a modest fee.

If you can figure the math and the concepts you can do this yourself, which is my goal. The last time I used math for math sake was 30 years ago. I pretty much have to start from scratch.

Here is a simple pattern that should be able to tessellate in a very basic fashion. By adding complexity to the surface it can add interest to the final piece. I can cut basic shapes into a 3d mesh as well as simple images so the potential for fun is on the high side.

I am calling my piece, Shattered, but I'm including the basic shape so you can build your own master piece. :D

[Scooby]

You must like challenges. Here's a suggestion - search tessellation shaders vs. geometry shaders. Also look for tessellation or tiling openGL, there's a ton of info. Sometimes too much info. is confusing but I still read all of it, you can always learn something.

[oscarl48]

Scooby.

Thank you very much for the suggestion. I'll check it out.

If I learned Blender I figure I can learn tesselation geometry. lol. I said that about wooden geared clock and so far I am not even close to learning it. I have too many brands in the fire and too little time to master any of them. Creating tessellate feasible patterns using the free software and porting to CW is a 60 sec exercise, so not a lot challenge though it is a good technique in the pattern makers tool bag.

Adding or modifying with existing shapes is also a 30 second exercise. Added a star into the shape. I can add complex geometry to the surface but that takes a few minutes more.

More fodder for my brain to chew on. Now if I can talk my wife into letting me have a forge I will be in real trouble.

- O

[oscarl48]

Sorry for bombarding everyone. I am waiting for the sun to warm up a little bit more before I try to go to do some wood working so sitting at the computer playing. Here is the same figure but with a complex geometry. Not adding the mpc since you guys probably have the hang of it now.

[Rocketman]

I've always like to play with tessellations. Too bad the Carvewright software lacks the ability to wrap one shape around another.(At least I haven't discovered it yet) You could then wrap your tessellations around chair backs and legs and pepper mills and gun grips and on top hats and and on vases and on and on! It's one of the biggest reasons I have to get things in and out of the Carvewright software, so I can do things I want to do with other software.

[oscarl48]

Its a butt load of work, but using additive merge style seems to conform a shape into another's shape geometry which could be used to "wrap" a shape. Maybe not understanding. I'll have to play with it some more. I only have one gun left with wood on it so I may play at making some custom grips for it and see how this works.

Edit: Okay that didn't take long. Brent had already shared a Ruger grips pattern. Thanks Brent. I am stoked. I actually hadn't realized how versatile that was. I may be carving some different variations. I have some purple heart somewhere and maybe some padauk. Not a lot but maybe enough for this.

[Rocketman]

Let's see if you can shrink that tesselation down to about the size of checkering and then "additive merge" it to that grip you have. If so I may have to start playing with Designer again.

[oscarl48]

It works but there are limitations with 2.5d. Not sure how much detail will survive the carving. Its looks good on the computer screen at least.

I created a tessellated field in blender fairly large to hopefully keep some of the detail when shrunk down. Ported and reduced the pattern until it barely covered all the grip and then applied the additive merge.

And you are right. No one program does it all. I have been playing with the 2d stuff the folks on here are great with and I am not. Its kind of funny that I really suck at converting 2d images but 3d patterns I've found very intuitive.

May have to try a dragon or snake scale on these next to see how it will look. :D

[oscarl48]

A bunch of options are opening up to me in my head. Today has been a good day. Learned a ton of new stuff with the software.

Because of the size not sure how much detail will survive but still a good exercise on what could be. Only way to find out is to try it. Going on my to do list. lol. Behind about 30 different other things.

[Rocketman]

A bunch of options are opening up to me in my head. Today has been a good day. Learned a ton of new stuff with the software.

Because of the size not sure how much detail will survive but still a good exercise on what could be. Only way to find out is to try it. Going on my to do list. lol. Behind about 30 different other things.

I too was playing with Designer, trying out the limits of the merge functions. It will work for many things but there is still no way to do a full wrap such as on a vase. Too bad the STL importer or the Pattern editor didn't have that function.

As far as the grips go, I see it functions better than expected. The wrap function I'd like to see would allow you to take a complete STL file and wrap one design around another very much like your able to do with the merge functions but textures and vines and all kinds of designs would wrap together and then you could carve with the rotary jig. Take a 3d house and wrap old grape vines on top of it. Or here in the mid-west take an old farm wind mill and wrap vines up and around it. You could carve two people out fishing in a boat and put a fish scale texture on everything for an artistic effect.

I dug out a 1911 grip I did with my last name on it. I modeled it in Sketchup and exported it as an STL. From there I brought it into the Carvewright and made a pattern out of it. I did a test carve with some scrap wood to see what it would really look like. It came out fairly well but I never tweaked it any further. Maybe someday I'll get back and finish the design and do a proper carve with some nice wood.

I'm fairly sure I ran the STL in and out of Meshmixer to iron out the bugs prior to importing into the Carvewright software.

Brad

[oscarl48]

Brad, I think we are hitting the limits of 2.5 geometry in attempting to force it on 3d objects. May be doable with the rotary add-on but I don't have it and have no plans for it.

Different topic. I just had one of those dumb EUREKA moments (dumb on my part). I don't need to understand the mathematics or theories behind tessellation of shapes as long as I know the steps to create patterns that tessellate. So that was my eureka moment. Okay pretty small moment but it did feel like a light bulb came on. Surprisingly occurred as I was firing my 45 at the range. A little bizarre in my opinion since both events have absolutely nothing to do with each other. hmmmmm. subconsciously thinking about gun grips maybe.

Here's a quick pattern I did playing with the concept. Again surprisingly simple when not worrying about math or theories. I am calling this abstract piece "A school".

Process: create shape in CorelDraw and save as svg format graphic. Import into Blender3d and create the complex surface geometry. Import into Designer using stl importer. Start playing with the layout and design of the piece.

Basic pattern enclosed for your own masterpiece creation. Pattern built from scratch and took about 10 minutes to make.

-Oscar

[oscarl48]

Listening to loud techno after watching Lawrence Welk. My wife is confused...but I digress. Here is a fun little tessellated shape with Suzanne superimposed. Suzanne is a Blender 3d primitive so is available at a keystroke. No work required.

No clue how it will carve but super fun and super quick to make.

[Rocketman]

Different topic. I just had one of those dumb EUREKA moments (dumb on my part). I don't need to understand the mathematics or theories behind tessellation of shapes as long as I know the steps to create patterns that tessellate. So that was my eureka moment. Okay pretty small moment but it did feel like a light bulb came on.

-Oscar

I agree we don't need or want to do all the math behind tesselations but knowing the roots helps break down the barriers. One of my light bulb moments was when I realized that the entire STL format is based on tesselations. Any flat 2d object can be tessellated into a single plane. Once that's done it's not too big of a jump to make it 3D.

As an example imagine a square drawn on a piece of paper. That square is just 4 points with 4 lines in between them. Draw another diagonal line between two of the corners. You have now tessellated the square by breaking it into two triangles. Just like an STL file; your "tessellated" square works like other true vector formats. It can be enlarged without loss because an enlarged version will still contain 4 points for the corners connected by the original amount of vectors. Unlike pixel based formats, an STL does not have to grow in file size. To increase resolution we simply divide each line in our drawn square in half and add a vector point at the point of division. An STL file works very much the same way and increased division does make file sizes grow exponentially. And that's STL files in a nutshell.

The nice thing about tesselation creation is it saves a lot of work once you realize a way to let the software do the repetition for you. You seem to have decovered a system that works well for you. I only wish more people would understand how powerful of a tool it is. Most any of the signs being made could be dressed up with texture applied to the individual letters, to the background of the sign or by using contrasting textures; both within the same sign.

The basic designer is so limited when it comes to using "factory" textures. I have not found a way to add my own yet so I'm one that also relies on creating my own in the form of patterns to get around the software limits. While I have Corel Draw, it's not free and other Carvewright users may feel left out because of this. Many of them don't have the STL importer. I chose the STL importer as the most cost effective way of expanding the basic free version of Designer. Almost all other add on software for the carvewright can be simulated with free or low cost software once you have a way to get 3D files in and out of the Carvewright software. It would be nice to do more within the Carvewright software but I cannot justify the cost of the limited expansion packs being offered. I'm interested as to what others feel is the one Carvewright software add on they would choose above all others and why? That question alone would be worthy of it's own heading.

[oscarl48]

Another quick pattern. If anyone tries any of these please post how they turn out.

[Rocketman]

I'm curious as to your methods. I'm on an IPad today so I don't have the luxury of downloading and playing with your pattern. How are you doing the multiples? With just a single copy of your creations the only way I can think of tesselating them is by manually pasting them in a pattern and then repeating the process to evenly expand the design. Doing this outside of designer seems easier unless there's a nesting feature I'm not aware of? Doing it within Designer does let you play with the tools such as feather and draft and height and also the merge options to elaberate on the pattern.

I've been saving some things to "Dropbox" and then I play with them later on my desk computer where I can retreave them with the "Dropbox" also installed on that machine. P.S. Wouldn't it be nice to have Bluetooth or wifi on the Carvewright for file transfers?

[oscarl48]

Brad, I am doing it manually. I've been using either in Blender or Designer to do it. That way I can control where the objects are located. If it was going to be super intricate though I would probably do it in CorelDraw where I have more control. You can be pretty sloppy in Blender and Designer and still get a good mpc. In Corel by snapping to object you can align perfectly.

[Rocketman]

Your experiments reminded me, years ago I played with font generator software. You could create an individual font letter by letter editing pixel by pixel. It looked kind of like the old video game 8 bit characters one would create on a Commodore 64 computer. Instead of creating normal fonts, I explored the "wing dings" end of the font spectrum. I created some cool custom logos and saved them as a personal font. Once loaded into any program that allows text the fun began. I could then placed them in patterns by changing text size from big to small and vice versa. Each line would allow me to make the pattern more complicated as I continued to weave the custom characters in interesting patterns. And the nice thing was that once the custom fonts were created all I had to do was type to create my designs. I ended up printing some custom T-shirts with cool borders and weaving designs all made with a handful of simple fonts. I made some of the patterns upside down and also mirrored them. Once printed it looked nothing like the individual keystrokes I used to create it. It was kind of like printing pictures with an old dot matrix printer except with stylized dots. Your designs would work well as custom fonts. By making a custom color palette my experiments would work well with the Carvewright and your tessellations. You could then not only vary size by changing text size but you could also vary cutting depth by varying colors of the fonts while typing patterns. I wish I had the time to explore this as I'm sure it would be interesting.

[oscarl48]

I used to make fonts a long time ago as well using CorelDraw. Many versions ago it had a native capability to build fonts. The company gave up on the capability a long time ago.

I am calling this one a butterfly garden.

For anyone that has CorelDraw I learned this technique with the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Om6WMi4YTo

After watching this video I had my aha moment on how simple it is to make these shapes if you don't worry about math.

[Rocketman]

Thanks for the link, I had never seen that one before. So many possibilities and only a fraction of the time needed to explore all of them. Keep up the good work.

I've been busy making fixtures and jigs out of aluminum and nylon to hold on and machine on a pepper mill I had started with the Carvewright. Strange wooden objects don't lend themselves well to being clamped without marring. I'm starting to understand why liquid guitars designed his flute in two halves. It's a lot of trouble to get a hole all the way through a long piece of wood from center to center without the drill walking.

Brad

[oscarl48]

Brad, that has been my primary issue with the wood book designs. Especially since I was trying to use a 12 in drill bit. It kept walking on me. I finally gave up on trying to drill the holes and went with using the table saw to cut a channel and then plugging the end portion afterward to create the hole for the dowel pin.

Good luck on the pepper mill.

Oscar