M.C. Escher’s “Wentelteefje” rolls out of the page and into the realm of 3D printing thanks to Rachel McConnell and the Objet500 Connex Multi-Material 3D printer by Stratasys. Otherwise known as “The Curl-Up”, the figure originated from the brilliant mind of artist M.C. Escher and is thought to be a 3D impossibility. The Curl-Up is a fascinating rendering of geometry and physics meant to confound the onlooker as it moves from a millipede-like creature with tiny human legs and feet to a rolled up ball propelled by those same feet.
Rachel McConnell has been a lead developer at Instructables and relished the challenge Escher’s famous print presented. “There are two major difficulties with any non-digital fabrication technique: testing and repeatability,” she explained. “It took me quite a few tries to get a shell shape I was satisfied with, and trying to carve or model it by hand even once, let alone copy after copy and all slightly different 18 segements, would have been very time consuming and extremely difficult. The speed, precision, and repeatedability of the Objet500 Connex 3D Printer removed all these difficulties.”
The adorable and absurd creature once crawled out of the imagination of Escher, and McConnell has brought it to its tangible form. With the aid of multi-material printing, McConnell could print a variety of forms and materials to test and reach the best combination. The segmented print could be processed through software, yet once printed, the artist could apply concept to model. In a way, Rachel McConnell’s experiment has given life to art. The Curl-Up finds life in a new medium and it is exciting to imagine other prints once restricted to the page find itself in a 3D world taking up a new space. How interesting that 3D printing can take a geometric phenomenon baffling the mind on page and put it in our hands.
Source: Stratasys
