kierancodes

[kierancodes]

Final Output

All up I was super happy with how my final output turned out. When lit it created a visually appealing final product that would be practical in a real life context and provide a much more aesthetic to an information bored. I thing that if I were to do this project again I would possibly look at stacking multiple layers of acrylic and seeing the difference that this would make - maybe having a different piece of information on a different piece of acrylic that way it would create a much more 3D effect.

I would love to see this project taken further and see different versions  of these for different mountains around the country. I am super happy with the fact that everything but the type on a path was created in processing and coded. I think that If I had more time that I might have liked to figure out the dimensions so that I didn’t have to change any of the paths in illustrator afterwards, however I think that this would have taken a lot more trial and error and the final output may not have been as uniform as this one is.

I think that it was helpful that from early on I had decided on the output that I wanted to go with as this allowed me enough time to go into the Fab Lab and test out to get the best output possible including using different types of material and testing to see how deep it should be cut. 

All up this project extended my knowledge  of creative coding and provide more of a glimpse into the world that is creative code. 

The link to my code can be found on GitHub here.

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Illustrator Workflow

As mentioned earlier I still had to touch up the processing output in illustrator. Below is a video of what I had to do in order to print the file, including changing the layer styles to something readable by the laser printer.

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Final Mockup

Once I had completed my project I decided to create a mockup of what it would look like in the park.

While it would have been nice for this project to be able to code the LED’s, the strip that I had already had a built in controller, which made it more difficult, however I can chose a specific colour from the array that is already set. It was also suggested to diffuse the LED’s similar to how the Fab Lab has done in their hallway, but This would mean that the LED’s weren’t as bright and would be less effective.

One thing that would be cool to do with the lights if I had focused more on that part of the design would be that they change colour in relation to the temperature, i.e the intensity of the blue would be more if it is colder, and less if it was a warmer day. Another idea would be to have the colour of the LED’s correlate to the regional colours, so that different ones throughout the county had different coloured LED’s that were the same as that region’s colours. For example Taranaki’s colours are black and amber so the lights would be Amber, where as if this was for Mt Cook, the colour would be red for Canterbury.

All Up I am extremely happy with how the final output has worked out, and the fact that the majority of the work has been coded, with only a few things needed to be edited in illustrator that were beyond the capacity of processing.

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Final Cuts

Today I went into the Fab Lab to do my final cuts. Before I used the acrylic I made a cut out of cardboard to see exactly how big everything would be and if I needed to make any adjustments.

After this cut I realised that there is still a-lot of space at the bottom on the mountain between the base. I changed the height to 137.5mm which allowed enough breathing room without being overly tall.

Once I had changed this I then cut the U shaped block out of 4mm plywood, and the 3 other pieces for the base out of 6mm ply. Finally I then set the laser up for 3mm acrylic, changed the raster power to 100% and the power of the engraving to 54%. This then meant that it would be deep enough to intersect enough light. All up the final cuts took about 25mins which included enough time to set the z axis of the laser cutter. 

Once I had all the cut pieces I then got some glue and glued each individual element together, which meant that the acrylic piece could stand upright by itself.

One thing that did require a bit of a work around was that there was something like dust that was around the edges of some of the cuts. I tried to remove this by using a microfibre cloth and water however this didn’t work. To remove this I used nail polish remover which cleaned if off well. I also had a final wipe down of any specs of dust or smudges that appeared on the piece. I decided to keep the film on the back for as long as possible to further reduce the risk of scratching it.

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Entorage

Once I had my final code output I went back and recreated some entourage images to further explore contexts. I thought that for some applications the tracks were not really appropriate, and so some of the images don’t have these, and others also don't have the horizontal lines.

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The Base of the Mountain

Once I had the code worked out I had to think about the practicality and size of the product. I knew that for the base I would sandwich the acrylic between two smaller blocks of ply. I would also cut out a channel so that the LED strip could sit inside this and be flush with the base of the acrylic. After Testing this with a cardboard model I knew that this would work but had to figure out how to do the channel. I figured out that the best was to do this would be to have two separate pieces of ply, one being a full rectangle and the other being.

Once I knew this I started to figure out the size that the cut would be. I settle on making the whole cut 250mm x 150mm which would allow a base of 50mm and still give enough enough space between the bottom of the cut and the wooden base. Once I knew this I then used an online mm to pixel converter and then coded the base dimensions using a both a PShape and also rectangles.

The Code for the base can be found here.

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Further Visual Interest

I wanted to explore some ways to add further visual interest to the code. One way I thought to do this would be to have the whole mountain rastered. I decided to do a quick mockup of this in illustrator, however once I had done this and created an offset around the outlines and tracks decided that this would be to messy, and would also interfere with the mountain too much - detracting form the main purpose of this project.

I then decided to add in horizontal shading lines. To make this I originally manually did them, they Harry pointed our that I could just use a for if statement which would be a lot quicker. However I wanted to have an offset around the mountain to break up the lines, I googled this and found no answer so then asked Tim who said that the only work around to this would be to add in a large stroke around the mountain then clean up the file in illustrator afterwards.

I also discussed a way to type on a path, however there is no option to do this, and the only way would be to manually figure out where each character would be using SOH-CAH-TOA which would be very tedious, so I opted not to do this, but still create the offset path to just type on in illustrator.

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Further Data Sets

This week I converted the tracks into the two data sets. I discussed with Harry how to include more then one csv files. Once I figured out how to do this I realised that each track would need to be in separate files as otherwise the tracks would create a loop as they would double back around on itself in some spots.

I also figured out that each track would have to have a different name for the pShape, otherwise only one shape would draw. 

I also wanted to figure out how to draw the hut. Initially I used a PImage, however this would not output a vector, so I figured out the co ordinates of where to draw this shape.

I then changed the bottom corners of the code so that they were square.

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Fab Lab Trials

Today I went into the FabLab to do further tests on the Laser Cutter. I managed to include text in my Processing Output, so simply just had to change the stroke styles so they were readable in the Laser Cutter. Today I mainly focused on testing different Power values to make a deeper cut. I also used some of the Glass edged Acrylic too. 

My first test was just the sample which had the normal settings, then tried bumping up the power. While it is difficult to see the difference in the photos, when comparing them side by side there is a huge difference in the clarity as the etching is a lot deeper the more power there is.

This is the output I had from Processing, I did have to change the bottom corners and make them square, but I will try and fix this in processing soon.

The Code can be viewed here.

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LoadFont and CreateFont

When I went to add in the text, I use the LoadFont function I had used for the previous assessment, however when i went to draw the sketch this error message showed.

So I use the CreateFont function and the text generated. I was interested as to why this was occurred, so did some reading of the description and found out that CreateFont essentially creates a vector output, which the whole sketch is exported to a PDF, where as LoadFont creates the text as a texture therefore working in pixels.

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Interim check-in

Today in class we had an interim exhibition where we presented our projects to date and got some feedback on how we can further it. I was really happy with my presentation, as it was different from the rest of the classes outputs. As i have not yet designed the base I just used masking tape to hold up the etching, and at the last minute decided to put a picture of the mountain in the background to show some context.

I also good really positive feedback, and someone even suggested on the sheet that an application could be exactly what I’m designing so that is positive. One thing that was mentioned was that cycling through the colours of LEDs is a bit default. The LED’s that i got for this one has a built in controller so I am unable to control this, but it is something to consider when making my final write up. One suggestion was to have the colour change with the temperature, or to have each mountain be the regional colour of that area, and the idea would be that there are multiple ones of these installed in different National Parks and mountain ranges around the country.

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Data Set Trials

Once I had decided on the mountain, and found the part of the mountain I wanted to take a cross section of I had to convert it into a data set. I did this by making a ruler with a plastic bak and some kiwi ingenuity. The only issue with this is that it does mean that there is most likely some human error with the scale, however as this is consistent across the whole design I don't think it will impact it much at all.

I also made the decision to only record down the reference point for every 100 metres (the thick lines on the map). This was simply due to the fact that I don't think any more detail will be added by recording every 20 metres, however if there is time allowing it will be interesting to compare at the end of the project.

I recorded the data into a spreadsheet, to be inputed into processing at a later date (once I refresh my memory on how to use spreadsheet data to determine points.)

I then outputted this but the first output was a little out of scale, and the wrong orientation. The orientation can be easily fixed either when I take it into illustrator, or even in processing by swapping the x and y values around, however this will require some additional sorting of the data, as this will then draw the outline upside down with the current data set so will have to either clean this or change the orientation in illustrator.

I discovered that the reason the scale is so off is that in the data set while I have the altitude values at the correct scale, the spread of the mountain is off, because the map is to scale, and each box is 1km, the ratio is actually 1:1 so the altitude and spread should have the same number of digits. To fix this I just changed the altitude from 1000′s to 100′s to match the spread, which solved the issue.

I think moving forward I would like to begin adding in more detail to the sketch with possible walking tracks and even huts and waterways, so will have to go back to the map to do this. I also need to figure out how to make a base for the acrylic sheet, which I am thinking to do with some plywood and stacking this together and cutting a slit our for the acrylic to slide through. 

Click Here to view this code on GitHub

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Entourage

For my entourage exercise I decided to use the birthdays graph data we created last week in class. This was because I think that my final mountain design is unique to the specific situation therefore the effect of it will be lost in different applications. I also decided to use that specific data as it looked a bit like a logo which I really likes, and because I chose a specific colour scheme of blues and green it is quiet controlled.

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PShape and createShape

I wanted a way to further refine my workflow, so that once I have the data set, instead of inputing the same coordinate twice - once to end the first line and again to start the second, I only had to input this once. Tim also raised the point that this could cause issues when laser cutting and instead of the laser cutting once continuous line, it would makes lots of single lines - making the laser take way longer.

He suggested to use a PShape function, which must be paired with a createShape function. Upon investigation I found that tat by changing the end.shape to OPEN and adding in extra s.vertex with the specific points, I can then create a single line, which just requires me to open it in illustrator, expand the clipping mask and then changing the style to the laser cutter template presets, I can go from processing into a print ready file in 3 clicks which will refine my workflow greatly.

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Mt Taranaki

I have decided that the mountain that I want to create my first prototype of it Mt Taranaki. This is because 

1) When looking at it from one side there is an instantly recognisable shoulder peak, or when looked at from the other side it is a rather symmetrical mountain.

2) I am from the Manawatu, an often on a very nice day when driving home from school we could sometimes see this mountain

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Workflow

I have identified that my workflow would be the above. I would also potentially like to add in some details to the final outcome such as text and maybe even details of tracks huts and streams etc.

One thing that will require further investigation is if I can have more than one anchor point in the line, which will mean I can have once continuous line, with many different anchor points.

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Exporting to PDF

The order of the code meant that the pdf was generating only one line.

To fix this we first changed the frame rate to 1, Moved the drawing including the background into the void draw function and used the mouse press PDF so that when the mouse had been released the PDF would export the layer. By having the background in the draw function this meant that the shapes would not overlap and each frame would have only one drawn circle.

This worked, but I then did some further exploring and found that I could do the same with the OneFrame pdf by placing the begin record before any of the code, and the end record after the last line of code. This allowed me to keep all the code in the setup function and not have to remember to click the mouse to save the pdf, and was also more straight forward.