Thursday, November 01, 2012
Constructable
Hasso-Plattner-Institut: Constructable is an interactive drafting table that produces precise physical output in every step. Users interact by drafting directly on the workpiece using a hand-held laser pointer. The system tracks the pointer, beautifies its path, and implements its effect by cutting the workpiece using a fast high-powered laser cutter.
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5 comments:
This looks like some pretty cool technology, but I wonder how accurate it actually can be. Not only that, but for most things, I feel like we would want to be much more precise than just free-hand drawing. You aren't doing any type of measuring here at all. In an industry where so much emphasis is on the look of the product, not having the ability to ascertain the exact details seems like it wouldn't be very useful.
Wow, this looks really amazing. I too wonder how it gets all the measurements so accurate but the working moving objects are proof that it somehow does. Im not sure i could ever really understand how something that technologically complex works but im still interested to learn more about how it functions and is so accurate and yet still very hands on where there looks like there is plenty of room for human error. It seems like it would be a huge time saver too with the way that you do all the steps at once right at the machine instead of having to go through cad first. I wonder if it has a memory feature and can replicate previous cuts. The only downside I can really see to this machine is size. If you had to cut something that was much bigger than a human being,even if the machine came in a size that big, it would still be incredibly awkward to draft something of that size, maybe if they came up with a scaled version.
I found out about this on a gizmodo article and was waiting to see how long it would take to end up on here. I think this is a great idea and will have a lot of use for Mechanical engineer and prototyping especially with the options the lazer cutter creating the finger joints for you and performing the calculations to create cog's and gears. It will be tricky for people to ensure that they are creating the pieces in correct sizes. I realy really really want to play with it though.
It's a neat addition to some already fairly useful technology but I don't really buy into it. Like Tiffany points out, in the video they are Based on this fact I'm very skeptical that the individuals would be able to create finger joints and gears that actually fit together and function without the proper design and calculations. And I would not trust a laser cutter of all things to make those decisions for me either.
I agree with Sean, this does look super fun BUT if I was going to do something for reals, then I would definitely CAD it to make sure that it was exactly what I wanted. I would need to talk to some designers, (who spend most of their time on the laser cutter) if this would be useful. What would be great is if this laser could cut through ¼ plate steel. Then you would have something.
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