As Autodesk’s Ember DLP SLA printer makes its way into the world, more users are able to test out it’s capabilities. One high profile user, in the 3D printing community, is 3D printing design studio Nervous System. Nervous System co-founder Jessica Rosenkrantz today published evidence of what she could pull off with Ember.
Ember makes up for its small build volume with what Autodesk claims to be extremely high resolution, using DLP projection to cure layers of resin into finely detailed objects. To see how well the machine could print one of the studio’s intricate designs, Nervous System printed a Hyphae structure. As the firm explains in a separate post, “Hyphae (3D) systems are computational design tools for creating network structures. They began as an algorithm for mimicking how veins form in leaves. We’ve adapted this algorithm to 3 dimensions and further developed it to create our own pattern dialects. We’ve created systems to generate jewelry, lamps, sculpture and even architecture.”
In this case, their Hyphae software was used to 3D print a spiral with branches as small as .35 millimeters in diameter, all printed with no supports, something that could have damaged the print when removed. The print took about 4 hours on Ember’s medium print settings.
The designers also applied their ingenious software to 3D scanned busts, through a workshop hosted by 3D Systems’ Scott Summit and Janne Kyttanen at the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, though it remains to be seen whether or not they will use Ember to bring them into the physical world. What they have brought into the world, however, is their Floraform software, which anyone will soon be able to use. Perhaps, their Hyphae algorithms will be, too.
