Keep Thinking


Changing gears to new technolgy, the magazine wired , had a brief article last month entitled "Scribble Me This," by Todd Jatras. Of course when I went to the site I searched for ten minutes trying to find the article to link to; which I ultimately could not find. This did however lead me to other interesting articles on new technologies that are making their way to the market.

Before I get too side tracked though, the article by Jatras was concerning the design collective front and "using motion-capture technology, not using sensor-studded suits but similarly trackable pens. A 10-camera array records gestures, which are then output digitally to a laser sintering machine." This laser then cuts shapes made out of liquid plastic which match the computer files. The designers are then able to create molded plastic chairs and proto-types for experimental design. The picture in the article also showed a lamp that was modeled off of a fly flying around the room and using the digital record in order to use the laser to create an experimental shape from the fly's path.

This process frees the graphic designer from building 3-D models by hand. Now the designer can draw out an idea on the computer and use the sae file in order to build a plasic model with the laser cutter. I have never used this invention/program, but I have drawn a picture on paper, scanned the image and sent the file to owosso graphics. This company does photoengravings. They cut a magnesium plate of the image I sent them, and I used it on a printing press to aid the text I had set. Thier are definite benefits to laser cutting, but carving wood and etching copper are still the best ways in my eyes.