Voronoi resin screen

The process outlines the stages and tools utilised to produce a voronoi resin screen. The screen itself exploits the material qualities of the resin and digital fabrication technologies to produce a final screen that has varying light qualities. The qualities produced by the voronoi screen are only possible by the implementation of digital design and fabrication tools. This yields new materials with multiple performance qualities.

Materials

MDF – dimensions depend on the size of the voronoi screen
Polyester resin – amount depends on the size of the screen
Resin catalyst

Tools

Computer
3 axis CNC
Vacuum former

Programmes

Rhino, this is a computer modelling software, a trail version can be downloaded at http://download.rhino3d.com/rhino/4.0/evaluation/download/
Grasshopper – this is a free parametric modelling plug-in for rhino this can be downloaded at http://download.rhino3d.com/Grasshopper/1.0/wip/download/

Step 1:

The initial step is to generate a 3d model in rhino using the parametric plug-in grasshopper. Open rhino and in the command line type grasshopper and press enter. In grasshopper produce the definition outlined in the jpeg or the definition to produce the voronoi screen can also be downloaded at http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/voronoi-cell-issue-fillet-and. The benefits of using the grasshopper tools are the multiple parameters produce varying results with no extra work. The definition is then baked and this produces a model in rhino that can be further manipulated in rhino.

When the definition is ‘baked’ it produces a screen with cell depths that only have the same depth. In order to produce varying depths multiple planes are produced at varying heights between the screen depths. The planes are the Boolean intersected with the voronoi cells.

Save the final rhino model as a 3ds file.