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Saturday, January 26, 2013
BUILDING A YETI SNOWMAN
www.entertainmentengineering.com: I got my start in the creative world working for a company that specialized in producing architectural models. I made templates with a jigsaw and hand sander, mounted the template on a surface table with a power router mounted underneath and used the template as a guide to produce finished pieces. The owner had been connected to special effects and props shops that sent us jobs from time to time. Once I was subcontracted for a month to a props shop that used a lot of CNC equipment, which could produce complex shapes without the grueling manual effort involved with building templates. When the owner of this company became ill and needed to downsize the business, I decided the time was right to strike out on my own.
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6 comments:
The uses of technology we have today cease to amaze me. I just completed a definition project for carp class and read alot about CNC technology and reading this article makes learning to use CNC equipment even more exciting. I didn't think of it being used for things other than wood and metal construction but this obviously shows its many other uses. The shapes are really quite elaborate for being sculpted from styrofoam and it just goes to show how people in show business are always looking for a cheap route. I am looking forward to learning more about the machinery and possibly making something on the side of sculpture.
I love how the guy made it sound like no big deal. O we just did this and this and then 15 hours later we had a yeti. I realize after you become skilled in a area that it becomes 2nd nature and much easier. I am supper impressed the the yeti and WOW 15 hours that is impressive. It took me 6 hours to CNC some basic snowflakes. The entertainment does have an amazing ability to adapt anything for our purposes and CNC will continue to be one of those things. CNC is a great technology and will be around for a long time.
This appeals to my inner child. My immediate reaction to this was that I want to make a 10 ft snowman and put it in my room. I realize it is probably much harder then he made it sound, but only because I have not been trained to use the machine. and now that I think about I woudl much rather have a dragon, yeah I as soon as I have access to a CNC I know how to use, I think Ill make myself a dragon. This also shows how potentially limitless a device like this is. And of course as we progress the technology will only get better, can't wait to see it in a few years
I absolutely love how the CNC if one of those tools that a person can legitimately do almost anything on. This projects seems like it would have been a nightmare to build if they had to carve the whole thing out of foam by hand, not to mention, it probably wouldn't have looked quite as clean. With a tool like the CNC there are endless possibilities and I think it's fantastic that we have on here and get to use it for projects like this.
Admittedly, I only understood about half of the technical terms in the article, but I will say that I am in awe of the capabilities of modern technology. When I saw the yeti, my first thought was that all that foam had to be glued together and then carved, making the time to complete the project astronomical. If that same arduous process can quickly be created with a machine, the bridge between what a designer can propose and what they can create becomes a great deal smaller. At the same time, these new innovations take some of the beauty of hand crafted work out of the picture. Personally I would take a hand carved sculpture over a computer carved one any day, but in the end it depends on the time and money you have at hand.
This article really demonstrates the capabilities of a CNC machine. and pushes the boundaries of the machine to try and match the boundaries of our creativity. This article demonstrates that the machine can be used as more of a reverse 3D Printer. It takes existing sheets of material and cuts away at them until only the shape you want is left over whereas a 3D printer lays down sheets of material only where you want them.
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