A01 - The Cube

Description:

Assignment A01, "The Cube," was intended to teach us to utilize a) Rhino to manipulate a cube in a series of volumetric additions, subtractions, and other transformations and b) Illustrator to take 2D diagrams of axonometric and plan/elevation views of the cube and emphasize line weights to create depth. Through the 16-step morphology of the 10'x10'x10' cube, we were able to thoroughly explore the curve, surface, and solid editing tools in Rhino. I used the tools to design various abstract and geometric manipulations that were built on each previous version of the cube. Upon extraction of the 2D drawings to Illustrator, I deliberately chose a single version of the cube that I felt would best show multiple kinds of tool usage as well as three distinct views that would give the most information about the cube. The void diagrams at the bottom right show the various types of forms and spaces that can be created using the editing tools in Rhino. 

Thoughts:

I had a pretty good time making this cube. I didn't have any sort of preordained plan or desire to create some specific shape; I just wanted to test out the tools and see what kinds of things could be made. Things were pretty smooth sailing up until the Twist iteration, which is when things got a little messy. It turns out that twisting the extruded point I made previously will cause gaps when you try to line up the point again. It caused a lot of frustration when I was trying to use BooleanDifference later on and especially during the line weighting and color blocking in Illustrator because of the complicated outlines. 

Color blocking itself went okay; learning how to use Live Paint and do shades of colors took some time but it was a smooth routine once I figured it out.

I also ran into some trouble with the void diagrams, particularly with the volumetric axon. Because of the uneven planes due to the Fold iteration, the partial sphere took a lot of picky solid-editing to boolean out. The BooleanDifference-from-a-whole-cube method didn't work so I ended up having to make a very specific and small prism around the sphere and boolean it out from there.

Review:

Pros: the board turned out pretty well. I was mostly pleased with the font that I chose (District), as it's just the type of clean and minimal that I like. 

Cons: for some reason, I can never get the hang of InDesign and all my placed diagrams were fuzzy. It was suggested that I should have done them as various artboards in Illustrator, so I'll try that next time. The font sizes for the move labels were also a little big and bold, something that I didn't foresee when creating the poster.

A01 Update

Progress: 14 iterations of the 16.

As of Monday night, I have completed 14 of the 16 iterations of cube transformations. I tried to use several different types of tools and varied the location to create interesting views. Most of these were pretty easy to form; I struggled a little bit with figuring out how to use the Fold Planar Faces, Twist, and Extrude Surface Along Curve tools. In some of the later iterations, I tried to boolean out some volumes but discovered that it wasn't working due to some geometry gaps caused during the Twist iteration. I've decided to forgo any more BooleanDifferences until I can figure out what's wrong and how to fix it or how to go about removing volumes in another way.

Rhino Tool Practice

We were asked to try out all of the Solid Tools in Rhino, so I made an array of 20something cubes and spent some time figuring out most of the functions in the toolbar. There are still some that I'm a little confused/unsteady about but I figure I'll cross that bridge when I get there if I need to use them. Several functions seemed to do things that I already could do with other tools, so I suppose there's always multiple ways of doing things if need be. 

E01: The Cubes (practice!)

Hmm...changed the layout so the cubes are bigger. I think I like the below one better.

Also thinking about if I should change the footer too. Maybe next time.

Description: 

For this project, we utilized basic tools and functions in the 3D modeling software Rhino to make a series of cubes with geometric/curvilinear volumetric cutouts. Because Wednesday's class (2/5) was my first exposure to Rhino, I felt somewhat unsteady with using the various functions for keeping track of the four views, creating volumes, etc. However, with some practice, I successfully created a group of altered cubes that I liked and felt significantly more comfortable using tools like Pipe, ExtrudeCrv, and BooleanDifference. 

Then, I made 2D views of each cube from the same perspective using the Named View and putting each cube in the same location based on the red/green axes (I must have missed the part of the lecture on using layers but I'm certainly glad to have that tip for next time!) and exported them to Illustrator. This project was also my first exposure to Illustrator so I had a couple stumbles in the beginning figuring out Strokes and Layers, ie. how to apply line weights and dashes to the right layer, bringing the visible lines over the hidden lines, and using swatches to color the right lines. With much patience and exploration (and googling tutorials), I managed to create a coherent set of drawings and organized them in InDesign. 

Thoughts:

I probably spent way more time on this project than I should have (also due in part to procrastination on studio work (let's be real, everyone does it a little at least mine was productive)) but I'm glad I got a chance to play around with Rhino and Illustrator and explore tools that I might have missed hearing about in lecture. Hopefully these skills will come in handy later on in this class as well as in studio and potentially in the professional world. Having seen some of my classmates' work, I'd like to try more things like BooleanUnion and varying line weights/colors in Illustrator to determine depth/distinguish volumes.