New CNC Sculpture

[Weatherall]

AccuArt (http://www.accuart.net)

I thought this might be an appropriate project to post. This is a sculpture that was initially 12" in height. The 12" maquette was digitized and the CAD data was used to create this 48" high polyurethane piece via cnc. There are images of the original model,CAD data, and completed project on my website under cnc milling.

I also have several new images under painting at my site. They are primarily constructed out of concrete, oil, and latex.

Thanks,

Curtis Weatherall

[fritchie]

Curtis - These various computer-directed sculpting machines are reaching a useful state of maturity very rapidly just now, after about fifty years of incubation. In effect, they are doing for organically shaped forms what the analog industrial revolution did for extruded or cut forms.

It will be intriguing to watch development over the next several years. Imagination of the artist, rather than capability of the machine, probably will be the determining factor in quality very shortly.

Please keep contributing in this area. I found your site’s cnc discussion very helpful.

[fritchie]

This seems a good place to add a current news item, so here goes:

I’m presenting below two images on the new procedures of laser scanning and rapid prototyping or 3D printing, technologies which are revolutionizing production of 3D materials, including sculptures. This post shows a group of toys initially brought into computer form by laser scan of individuals from movies, and then realized in 3D through these print techniques and human retouching. The image in the second post shows both a scan platform and a 3D printer.

These technologies are so new to sculpture that I have not seen the production techniques myself, though I have seen a sculpture or two made this way. Clearly, this is part of our future. Recent articles say computers can be equipped for this work at costs in the range from $10,000 upward, a drastic drop from earlier costs, but of course still high for an individual sculptor. And that doesn’t include the scanner or printer, or materials costs.

Overall, these techniques first will become available to most sculptors through schools or communal facilities, much as casting studios and perhaps metalworking shops. But, they nonetheless in a decade or two probably will bring costs of making figurative sculpture more in line with costs of “abstract” work. That, of course, is one of my major reasons for interest.

We have had occasional posts on these techniques over the last year or so. I’d welcome any comment, especially from firsthand observation.

P.S. - For honesty in reporting, these images are from yesterday’s New York Times (Nov. 6, 2003), and the paper credits both Alan and Axel Koester. It’s no accident that many of the figures are from the Matrix movie sequence, the third installment of which opened the same day. Over the last year os so, this paper, as well as many others, has greatly increased its content of infomercials, commercials posing as informative material. (Hope I’m not making myself or the Community legally liable for helping open the public’s eye to this.)

[fritchie]

Here are tools of the trade, as promised in the first post. The technician running the scanner in the picture at left holds a small 3D “print” of a face in the image at right.

In the left image, the subject being scanned appears on the round table to the rear. I would guess he would be in the center of the table for the scan, and that the table rather than the scanner moves. This seems awkward but probably is cheaper that having a moving scanner.

[ALH]

I find all this very fascinating. As a sculptor who essentially makes copies of people by hand, having to compete with a machine/process that can produce these copies automatically is really interesting.

I mean, how much does it matter to anyone that a subject is realized through the filter of my traditional sculpting skills? Is this, now apparently self imposed, process of interpreting nature by hand something that can be set aside? I've answered that question to my own satisfaction but it still informs my approach.

I've guess we sculptors have more in common with painters now.

[fritchie]

I put up this bit about new technology because I think it can greatly lower costs of work that traditionally has been done by hand, such as pieces with the complexity of a human figure. Obviously, it can be used for work of almost any reasonable form, and in principal reduce costs anywhere, but modeling and casting generally involve more hand labor than fabrication.

An analogy to the camera and photoprint is appropriate, but these computer technologies can build digital models in many mays. The model (of any subject, not just a person) can come from a laser scan, it can be built within the computer completely from imagination, it can be built internally from digital components, and all of these possibilities can be combined. Production of the physical 3D object is a separate process from generation of the model.

Certainly, many sculptors today use body casts, or casts of body fragments, in their work, and may manipulate these in preferred ways. One thing this technology can do, at minimum, is reduce the cost of making these initial casts. Of course, right now possibilities are broad in principal and limited in practice, by costs. My current interest is educational.

[jwebb]

At the risk of being argumentative (again), here goes. You've asked for comments "especially from first-hand observation", and I've got some. As mentioned earlier, I work for an Investment Casting Company - not making sculptures but engine and aerospace structural parts; medical prostheses; etc. In all of these applications, what's wanted is virtually the same part, over and over. Therefore, precision tooling is built, into which wax is injected to produce very repeatable parts. Usually tooling is machined aluminum, with inserts of either more machined aluminum; ceramic; epoxy; or soluble wax - for making internal shapes and passages. Making the tooling is extremely expensive and time-consuming, especially because initial designs tend to get changed a bit or a lot once first article prototypes are made and tested out in service. Therefore, in recent years we have gone more and more to one-time patterns for making First Articles and runs of "developmental" parts, to put off or avoid the tooling costs and expedite one-off deliveries. One way this is done is with Stereolithography (SLA), in which a computer reads a digital "blueprint" and directs a set of lazers, which zap the surface of a pool of special resins, which react photo-sensitively, and solidify grain by grain into the shape of a "plastic" pattern, which rises from the pool before your eyes. These patterns can be gated, invested, burned out and cast, just like wax. There are many other providers of digitized fabrication techniques coming out of the woodwork. I saw a demo of one which resembles the early color printers, in which seperate styli whipped around and drew red, yellow, blue and black onto the paper; only in this case, molten METAL instead of ink came out of the stylus. Part of this outfit's demo was making small "portraits" of folks. The mechanical properties of these metal deposition parts are (so far) much less than cast parts are capable of, so their application is limited. But it's pretty clear that the days of Investment Casting as a major production method for industrial parts, are numbered. I felt like a wagon-wheel maker watching his first car drive past. As a Sculptor, well, there's no accounting for tastes. And you guys are certainly welcome to your preferences. But I don't like this stuff at all. For me, that a sculpture is "filtered" through my skills and my eye and my brain; or yours; are precisely what makes it Art and worth doing in the first place. I think (with apologies ) these big old heads made with CNC machines are lifeless as mannequins. Of course, some interesting work can be done that is ABOUT "liflessness", or about this whole phenomenon. But I don't find it appealing. In my own work, I've gotten progressively more LOW Tech. I now hack sculptures directly out of hard stone, most of the time, as it was done by the earliest humans on earth.

[Araich]

Originally posted by jwebb
I now hack sculptures directly out of hard stone, most of the time, as it was done by the earliest humans on earth. Curiously, one of the most successful works (IMHO) in this years Sculpture by the Sea, is a set of stone figures - they are only vaguely formed, no arms legs or any detail, and finished by stone on stone rubbing. By Willemina Villari, #65 if you have a catalogue. The imagination runs riot when looking at them. They are no more than loosly shaped bolders, and have more art per square inch than any scan, can.
But I guess you could reproduce an edition of them with this new technology. Eventually. Like Tupperware.

[fritchie]

jwebb - I wanted to cover all forms of these new technologies, to let more sculptors hear about them and to get input from people like yourself, who have used them. Thus, it’s not just about CNC (as I’m sure you realize).

As I’ve said here before, I ‘ve worked with computers since the summer of 1957, when I had a government internship at a research lab, and I’ve tended to follow these procedures at a distance as they developed, whenever possible.

One sculpture produced roughly thus way that I remember seeing online was a head of Arthur Fiedler, longtime conductor of the Boston Pops. This was about 5 - 6 feet high, and essentially was a scan of some sort, the equivalent of a laser scan, transferred to horizontal sections through the head. The original sections (on life scale) probably were about 1/4 inch or so, because the technology was very crude at that time, so with expansion from about 1 foot to 5 feet, each section probably was about 1 inch or a little more in thickness. The result was a staircase-like image of his head. It probably was executed in bronze, though perhaps concrete. In effect, this was avant-garde at the time. I’m not sure about date, perhaps 1980.

It’s true that art always is at the lowcost end of the scale, and art produced this way either will need hand manipulation, or will have to emphasize the stairstep nature as the piece above did.

On the metal stylus technology, a leading edge sculptor friend had several pieces in a Contemporary Museum show here about 10 -15 years ago in which he had vapor-sprayed metals onto other materials, in a low-heat process. I didn’t get too much into the technology then, but it probably was a type of plasma deposition instead of cutting. I do recall that he deposited copper onto steel this way, and I think he deposited zinc onto styrofoam.

[jwebb]

Of course somebody may very well be using this technology right now, to do great Art. I hope to see it.

RH, Sculpture By The Sea seems to be a wonderful show. I haven't seen the work you describe, but found a website that shows a selection from both new and previous shows. (Including your recent bronze, which was discussed at length on this site before, during and after its making. I also didn't realize you took top honors there in 2002). Very impressive work.

[Weatherall]

Whether or not the technology is producing great art will always remain debatalbe. I do think that artist such as Patricia Cronin and Rona Pondick have been very successful when using this technology. I have found that most artist can get a sculpture to a certain aesthetic point when this technology is employed. Proportions and scale are realized rather quickly and with far less material waste via computer modeling or in a maquette which is scanned/digitized. It simply allieviates the arduous process of building armatures, etc. for enlargement when you know where you want to take a form. I have found that CNC, SLA, etc. gets most artists to 90% to 95% completion. After that, the hand of the artist usually goes back into the piece to finalize the form.

[fritchie]

Curtis - Can you say a bit more about the image you posted? I haven’t tried to check further with your site or the artists you mention. Also about the material, technique, finish, etc.?

[Weatherall]

Fritchie,

Hey, Sculputure Mag. had an article on her in September. It was Vol. 22 No. 7 2003. The image I posted was fabricated in stainless steel but she works with other materials as well. She did her head scans on a Sanders Design RP Machine in wax. The resolution was .0005 of an inch. Really fine detail, captured the skin texture, etc.

Hope this helps

[fritchie]

Thanks! Guess this shows how much I read Sculpture Mag. Their coverage has been improving, and I should have the issue.

[fritchie]

Curtis - Thanks for this reference. I dug out the issue and find it much better than earlier ones. I don’t want to get off-topic with the magazine, but the article on Rona Pondick is quite informative. After I made the post, I wondered if the image actually was of a real piece, or of a digital model, rendered with computer software. They tend to be slick like the stainless steel, and generally are diffusely illuminated like the slide, also.

As far as stainless steel being a new sculptural material, Isamu Noguchi did a lifesize head of Buckminster Fuller in stainless many years ago, probably in the 1930's. I believe Sculpture Mag. had an article on his figurative works.

As a sidenote, I read, probably in the same piece, wherever it was, that Fuller convinced Noguchi to have his rooftop studio walled in stainless steel. He changed it quickly, as the lighting was so bright and even, it was nearly impossible to see shapes. Sculptors are more dependent on shadows that we probably recognize.

[xsculpt]

jwebb,

I read your post with great interest. Particularly your distaste computer manufacture. I find the whole issue compelling and interesting. I've been making things with this hi tech stuff for a while and my position is evolving and changing on the subject. Recently, I keep imagining ways to damage and defeat the regularity, while still employing it. I will do it too. The sculptures like so many other things as you describe are even, their surfaces inarticulate. They are unaffected by wear meaning they wear like plastic they still have this evenness this relentless machine quality and there is nothing in the material nor its implementation that speaks of the unique. I know a sculptor who works with natural materials adn the effect is still the same. For my part, I still find that energies and consciousness carry across in these new processes and that fascinates me. consciousness and intelligence is present within the machine. The part, like much conceptual art, is the implementation of intention. I like that. And yet, it asks for more. And there is no dirt in there. No glitch, no effort. Just even 12,000 rpm, cutter bit into foam sprayed fiberglassed. As you can see I'm getting carried away. I want to rot this shit, cut materials that are inappropriate, use machines at ridiculoously slow or high speeds, I want to burn bits and wear the plastic away with chemicals and chop and carve and leave cracks and mistakes and impossible beginnings and misteps. I want to tie it up with wire of all kinds and diameters. I like that pictured head and I'd like to go at that head and all the other shit I'm making. I need to get the machines, make the shit myself and then dismantle it. I used to look in wonder at those facades that were carved from foam and then coated with stucco. I thoughtt that it would bring back the hand made building. All you have to do is knock it a little and you hear "phludd." Ugly fucking sound, without effort, without committment. On time, under budget, of an idea thats not very challenging. There is a continuity, a sameness, a cookie cuttter, a subdivision, quality a repeatablility that is madening, overdetermined, lacking. and yet we learn to use it the make things with it of it by it. curious contradiction to build and to have the facilty and not to want to use it.

Also, do I detect in that distaste the disdain of the familiar. I know that if I had to go hang sheet rock for a living again, I'd just about puke, let alone make any art from it. As a contractor/artist once told me how much he hated the vans and the ladder racks, the steel tool chests, and utility belts, boots and carharts. He hated it disdained it wouldn't care if it were never in his life again and yet monday morning at it again.

As an aside, I'd love to know more about the metal machine thats printing metal in color. I wrote one of the first articles to propose color in a 3d prototyping machine. It was published twice in Prototyping Technology International and in Artbyte. I relished its presence in both disciplines.

thanks for your post....
michael rees

[kaidu]

Two years ago I was able to try a demo of a computer sculpting device. It had a stylus with force feedback so that you could*carve* a block that was on the computer. It was a fairly good aproximation of actually carving in a soft material. This company (cannot remember the name) had a machine about the size of an office copier that would then produce the object modelled.

[jwebb]

Michael,
You bring great energy to these issues, and I really like your "I will do it, too" attitude. That is exactly the right approach. Every work of Art , I think, is a problem-solving exercise. That's what keeps us fascinated. As far as appreciating the results of the computer-aided work, I say again that everybody is entitled to their own tastes. Personally, I’m looking for some essentially “human” spark in a work of Art that says that some other human being saw, appreciated, or felt some particular way about it. And I want to convey that to others in my own work. I find that in ancient artifacts, as well as in the work of the Masters, and most powerfully in abstract Art. I don’t find that in most “conceptual” Art, at least not visually; I guess because that’s not what it’s about. Much of it doesn’t seem to be visual at all; it’s some kind of brain-tease or clever idea. Intellectually I can accept that but I don’t generally get off on looking at it. I know it's Art because it's in a gallery or a museum or somebody's portfolio, but that's not enough in my book. And the computer-generated stuff I’ve seen seems to be in that category. I shouldn't fault the tool, I guess. I don’t doubt that can and will be “overcome” if people like you want to overcome it. I will have to dig up the name of the supplier who did the demo I mentioned above. It didn't put out metal in three colors, by the way, I was just comparing it to the old stylus printers, which did three colors of ink. The metal that came out of this thing was like "slush" or "pot" metal; no strength to it but it sure looked like metal. Regards,
Joe

[jwebb]

Michael & all,

As best I can determine, this was a firm called DTM out of Austin, TX that had the system I saw, and it was a couple years ago, not the six months it seemed to me. The technology is termed SLS (Selective Laser Sintering), and it is not even all that new, developed in 1989 - 1992. My sources think that company was bought out by 3D Systems, the mfgr of most current SLA patterns that we use. The SLS system, I'm told, can utilize multiple materials, including some type of metal. See www.3dsystems.com for all the stuff they're up to now.

Joe