Design
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The design of a printed pot has to be worked out beforehand in every detail as the printer will do exactly as instructed. I use my knowledge of how clay behaves to make viable designs.
There are three stages to the technical design.
I use the Rhino 3D Computer Aided Design program and the Grasshopper programming plugin to get the idea onto the computer screen. The photo shows the four different views of a shell vase design in Rhino.
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The photo shows a 'slicer' program which cuts the design into hundreds of thin slices. I've subsequently replaced this with my own slicer program which outputs a smooth continuous spiral – yes it's a coil pot!
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The final step is to turn the long spiral into G-Code – thousands of instructions to move the printer head one tiny step at a time. The code is saved on a memory card, which is then plugged into the printer.