TROUBLE SHOOTING

This template is a fantastic way to highlight the back of the body as an artefact for Cosmic Armour. It could be used as a promotion tool due to it’s bold and rigid structure. The aim of the project is to promote a fluidity towards engagement with care. More points will be added to emphasise the visual and psychedelic effects of the piece.

troubleshooting

Adding more points to the definition affects the 3D printing quality in relation to the thickness of the filament. Also, if more points are added closer to each other the divisions of each point does not have space to spread out between the next cell division so the legs will likely merge when closer together.

The final Grasshopper parameters:

• Radius - 6.0 • Charge - 3.00 • Decay - 5 • Count - 26 • Steps - 220 • Accuracy - 0.5 • Thickness spiders - 0.600 • Thickness cells - 0.600

• Finalising the elements of the definition is quite complex because all the components need to be considered in accordance with the others for the definition to work. For example, changing the field charge disrupts the whole definition so it cannot be baked and worked on further.

The key components in this definition:

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• Field line • Point charge (create the void or hole in the spiders) • BB offset (bowerbird) thickens the offsets on either side and creates the cell divisions • Boundary surface (uses the patterns of the garment to shape the definition within) • Voronoi process (using a square shape to divide the space into calculated points with measured distance ie. generates geometry around the points)

Front and back designs are divided further into stylised segments for two reasons. Firstly, the bed of the 3D printer measures 4000 x 600mm so the files need to fit these measurements. Also, divisions are important for the final construction and the flexibility of the clothing. There are 4 separate prints in total: two for the back and two for the front.

All parts of the design also need to be prepared for 3D printing compatibility. For example, geometry doesn’t always stretch far enough, so the leg divisions need to be extended manually in Rhino.

In some cases lines should be converted from a surface to a planar surface.

The lines need to be rebuilt to be made a closed curve for the design to work. This means the points in the close shapes can be put to a fixed number of points – highlighting where the legs cross over or back on each other.

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