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signal (2)

Interested in CAD but find AutoCAD too expensive? Try Draftsight, a free CAD package from the makers of Solidworks. [more inside]
posted by backseatpilot on Mar 25, 2011 - 36 comments

The Gold prize in the Die and Mold machining section of Mori Seiki’s Cutting Dream Contest Awards 2007 was won by the Kawanami Ironworks Inc. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the company machined a jacket from aluminum. [more inside]
posted by prostyle on Feb 15, 2008 - 15 comments

This giant Ukrainian Easter Egg (pysanka) was built in 1975 in Vegreville, Canada by (then) Univ. Utah Computer Science Professor Ronald Resch. Interesting egg factoids can be found here--including that it swivels like a weather vane. Vegreville has an annual festival. More images of egg here. The Vegreville Pysanka was the first physical structure completely designed with computer-aided geometric modeling software. There is a good description here of the complex geometry involved. It's based on a technique (PDF) he developed and patented for folding a flat material (i.e. sheet metal) into flexible surfaces. Ronald Resch has had an interesting career.
posted by lobakgo on Apr 8, 2004 - 6 comments

POVRay Short Code Contest 3 - Surprisingly complex (though not necessarily pretty) images created with scene files of no more than 256 characters. I like the recursive trees. Via abcde.
posted by signal on Mar 26, 2004 - 9 comments

ACADIA Design Competition: an exploration of the use of computer aided design in architecture, not just as a representation, but as experimentation. My personal favorite. Also, a pretty cool Digital Media Exhibit. One of the participants made a realtime city generator, inspired by one of Italo Calvino's books. Warning: The site pretty slow and some of the projects make extensive use of flash
posted by signal on Aug 5, 2002 - 3 comments