4 | Cutting Supersurfaces

From flat surfaces (2D) to 3D surfaces

Zine

Moodboard

To illustrate what I think the two extremes, organic and geometric are, I made a moodboard. When I think of geometric I think of shapes that have sharp edges and are symmetric. When I think of organic I think of shapes that have fluid wavy edges and asymmetric.

Inflatables

Sam showed a few different types of ways of creating a 3D object from a flat surface. One of those ways was an inflatable object made of TPU. As soon as I saw that I wanted to experiment it. In the presentation I noticed that there weren't examples of inflatables that inflate like a Rotational Erection System (RES). More about Rotational Erection Systems further on in my documentation.

I used

Material

Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU)
Baking paper

Tools

Scissors
Iron + ironing board

Preparing before melting the TPU in

Cut a shape out of the baking paper. These become the air chambers of the inflatable unit
Grab two pieces of the same size TPU. Or a format that if you make that double mistake, at least both fall over the baking paper
First put a layer of baking paper on the ironing board. The TPU heats up quickly and melts, otherwise it will probably stick to the ironing board
Place the TPU on it
Place the shape you cut out of the baking paper on the TPU
Place the same size piece of TPU on top. Or fold the other piece of TPU over it if you have a large enough piece of TPU. As long as you make sure that there is enough TPU around the baking paper that can melt together
On top of this you put another piece of baking paper. You need this layer of baking paper so that the latex does not stick to the iron. So now you have a total of 5 layers: Baking paper, TPU, baking paper, TPU, baking paper

Rotational Erection System (RES): Origami Extended with Cuts

I stumbled upon some Rotational Erection System's (RES) and eventually found a design I really liked to make. So I did some research and tried to find a 2D template to lasercut this myself. While searching for tutorials and templates I ended up on looking at a Flickr page, of professor Yoshinobu Miyamoto, with a bunch of different RES pictures. One of those pictures was a screenshot of a software that creates 2D templates for RES. I clicked on the picture and saw that it was a screenshot of a video. I watched the video and it created a much better understanding of how RES works.

I used

Adobe Illustrator
Polypropylene (PP) 0,8 mm thick
Lasercutter

Bauhaus spiral

Josef Albers - Three dimensional piece of paper (from his course at the Bauhaus), photo taken 1928-29, printed later, gelatin silver print

Lasercutter

Andrei Motian, a classmate of mine, already found out a few things before I started lasercutting my designs. Andrei already noticed that the matte side of the PP plate faced upwards created better results.

Computer

Make sure there you don't have multiple lines beneath each other. The lasercutter traces every line. So if you got multiple lines beneath each other it will cut multiple times at the same spot.
Save as illustrator 8 file, the lasercutter software doesn't support newer versions
Open lasercutter software
Import illustrator 8 file
Adjust settings of the speed, power, output (some lines you don't want to lasercut), dotted line/cut/scan.
Download file to lasercutter

Lasercutter

Open lasercutter software > import
...
Place material and make sure the material is correctly lined up and heightened if necessary.
Check if the laser is at the right height.
File > Enter >
Move laser to startpoint where you want to cut. And click on origin, the new position is now saved. Otherwise the lasercutter will start at its previous saved position.
Click on frame if you want to see a demonstration of the area the lasercutter uses to cut.

I lasercutted this material facing the matte surface facing upwards. With these settings it doesn’t fully cut through the material. Afterwards I used a knife to cut it out of the PP. I was really surprised that the cuts made a really flexible RES.

The laser can sometimes cause sparks on the bottom. It is therefore always smart to increase your design, otherwise you will get dirty spots in your design. Unless you want this, it is good to raise your design before cutting.

You can put some weight, on the parts that are not cut in the material, on the material. Some material may shift during cutting.

Creating book sample book

There's three things you need to create a book: a format, the content and bookbinding.

Format

I chose to create a sample book with 15 x 15 cm pages. All the Rotational Erection Systems I made were created on 15 x 15 cm squares so that was the easiest solution to fit the Rotational Erection Systems, without needing to lasercut new ones.

Content

Ofcourse you got the front cover. Then I used the first spread for a moodboard illustrating my interpretation of the material properties a geometric shape has. After that five spreads with the five Rotational Erection Systems in the different gradations from geometric to organic. On the left page the info about the material (thickness/weight, price and where I bought it), settings of the machine, (unforeseen) insights / tips. On the right page the Rotational Erection System, it's nice to be able to also feel the samples. And the last spread for a moodboard illustrating my interpretation of the material properties a organic shape has.

Choise of bookbinding

A big part of producing a book is choosing the right of bookbinding technique that fits the content. For my content I thought the bookbinding technique Leporello fits perfectly. You can read it like a book but if you want you can extend it to a really wide book. That reminds me of a RES.

Besides that I think it's cool to be able to see the different gradations between the two extremes organic and geometric. To be able to line them up and really compare them. And having two sides to showcase the two different types of productions separately.

Producing the sample book

Lasercutting book out of paper sheets

The book turned out to be 15 cm high and because it's so wide I had to split it up into multiple less wider rows which I had to tape together. I used two 50 x 70 cm sized paper (290 gr) sheets.

Assembling the book

Putting content in the book

I used transparent double-sided tape to tape the polypropylene on the pages. That's because glue and polypropylene and glue aren't a great match. To glue the paper RES and other content together I used Pritt.

What I learned

That it's important to make sure you don't have multiple lines beneath each other before sending it to the lasercutter. Especially important tip when you're lasercutting easily melting material.
I sometimes forgot to make a square cut around my design. So I had to cut it by hand or I could have also made a square afterwards. It just saves a lot of hassle to draw a square around your design so you don't have cut afterwards by yourself.
A bunch of new bookbinding techniques and the influence these techniques have on the quality of reading and the lifetime of the book.
Polypropylene doesn't work well with glue.