Programs such as Blender, OpenSCAD and others use a mesh system to render 3 dimensional structures. These meshes can be thought of as a set of connected surfaces that together describe a 3D structure. One implication of creating 3D structures this way is that objects can not have truly curved surface. Continue reading
The statistics on gun violence in this country are heart breaking. Guns killed 11,419 people in 2013. This represents a loss of over 500,000 years of life. Unfortunately, the rate of gun violence continues unchecked. This topic never loses its timeliness. Three Days – 4,000 Years is an adaptation of the powerful U.S. Gun Deaths visualization the data design firm Periscopic created a few years ago in response to the school shooting in Newtown CT. Continue reading
Here is an
other 3D map. This one shows differences in sea surface temperature (SST) along the East Coast of the U.S. The elevation differences highlights the Gulf Stream, a surface current that flows north along the western edge of the North Atlantic, transporting warm water northward from the tropics.
I’ve been thinking about creating a 3D model of Minard’s famous chart depicting Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia for quite a while. I finally gave it a shot over the weekend.
I could not be happier with the results. The first person I showed the model to said that she never really understood what Minard’s chart was showing until she saw it in 3D. Continue reading
The wave interference models I shared a few months ago followed two dimensional waves over time. (x and z axes represented space and the y axis represented time. As an extension of this work, I’ve started creating models of interaction patterns formed by circular waves.
The models in this post are snapshots showing interaction pattern formed by two longitudinal waves propagating over time.
Physical representation
s of information can help people make emotional connections with the patterns and relationships contained in data. One way to create that emotional connection is to relate information to sizes and shapes people are familiar with from everyday life. Continue reading
According to NOAA, this past May was the wettest month on record for the the US. The distribution of rain was not uniform. Parts of the central US received 2 to 3 times as much rain as usual while precipitation on the most of the East and West coasts was below average. Continue reading
I was playing around with modeling wave forms with OpenSCAD and ended up creating a series of physical representations of wave interference. Continue reading
Here is my entry for the 3DPPVD printed ornament contest.
I used a combination of Inkscape and Openscad to design it. It was printed on my Makerbot Replicator (1st gen) dualstrusion machine.
I am leading a discussion about 3D printing at my local library this evening. This is the summary of design resources I came up with: Continue reading
