evolute. blog
behind the scenes
Kevin and a part of his team will be working into the night, trying to get more panels done for tomorrow. Thursday is assembly day at Robofold, we will work at Cutting Edge in the morning and then move everything on site and start putting the pieces together. The fabrication takes quite a long time, first the cnc machines need programming, the MDF framing needs preparation and stacking for accommodating higher curvatures, the formers have to be machined, the unfolded developable strips are cut flat and then put on the formers under heat and pressure so they take the correct shape. After they have the correct shape they need some edge finishing. We have over 50 single curved panels in total, quite a big task. I have to mention that the Cutting Edge team is doing some extraordinary work, we and our workshop participants are trying to help as much as possible but the machining and thermo-forming times are quite long, we hope to pull it through. Stay with us !
So it is Day 3 of the EvoluteTools+Corian workshop, day 3 is fabrication day, we have all the workshop attendants at Cutting Edge right now, helping with the Corian forming. Last night we worked late trying to send as much data to Kevin at Cutting Edge so they can prepare for fabrication. We are a bit short on time, the machines are running at maximum, delivering MDF jigs which are used to thermo-form the single curved strips of white Corian.
We are pleased to announce our participation in the Shape to Fabrication workshops and conference. Evolute teamed up with experienced Corian processor Cutting Edge, offering the workshop attendants an exciting opportunity to design and build the seating area of a theater room, over four days of intensive iterative design and assembly. Workshop participants will use EvoluteTools for optimizing freeform surfaces for production constraints, gather knowledge and experience in Corian processing, interface and exchange ideas with the other groups in the event over four days of hard work. We would be happy to have you onboard, seats are limited though so register early!
As a US reseller of our products and services, Jonathan visited us this summer in order to collect more knowledge about how and what we work with. As an architect, entrepreneur and all around good guy he is always interested in fascinating geometry aspects, as evidenced in the presentation he held at TU Wien. His contagious passion and excitement for geometry can be clearly seen in his work and the collection of mathematical models available on shapeways. Recently Jonathan kicked off the sales of EvoluteTools in US with a heavy introductory discount, if you are considering buying the plugin, now it is the time to do it. Check out the Formpig website.
We are working hard, adding new features to the upcoming release of EvoluteTools for Rhino. One of my favorite new command is presented in the video below – extracting principle curvature lines. Extracting and analyzing the pattern of these lines enables the user to panelize a freeform surface with a perfect planar quad mesh. The new command will be available in the Planarization Module. More new features sneak peeks coming soon.
I would like to thank the webinar registrants for their interest in our product and for taking the time to attend our live presentation on the 29th of October. For those of you who missed it – the recording is now available to watch online. I hope you received our follow-up emails with a compilation of frequent questions and answers, if you have more questions – just use the forum or email us directly. We are also interested in what are your thoughts about the development of our Rhino plugin – if you have some ideas you want to share – please don’t hesitate to, or just drop an answer to the poll we set up. During the webinar we used version 1.2 of EvoluteTools which will be coming out pretty soon, we are still adding some new features to it, which we will showcase in some tutorial videos. As a reminder – by request, webinar attendants will get a 20% discount coupon for acquiring EvoluteTools for Rhino.
Webinar Q&A:
http://www.evolute.at/software/forum/topic.html?id=49
Poll:
http://www.evolute.at/software/forum/topic.html?id=50
– flexible and precise freeform modeling
– easy design iteration
– fastest way of paneling and optimizing a freeform surface
Lately we have been working closely with the T-Splines team in order to see how our products can be used together and what are the benefits. T-Splines for Rhino is…awesome, there’s no better way to put it, it allows you to model the craziest shapes with great ease, flexibility, precision and speed. Not only you have incredible modeling power but you can build up an amazingly intricate and elaborate design all within a single T-Splines surface, this means you can iterate your design very fast without having to worry about refitting, matching, filling holes, patching up etc. Is this all ? No ! T-Splines also has a GrassHopper component, so you can interact with your favourite parametric plugin. Yes – we are definitely excited about T-Splines over here and I’m pretty sure so are you. What is really attractive about this combination of Rhino tools is that once you designed your freeform architectural surface in T-SPlines – you automatically have the coarse mesh ready to be subdivided with one of the many mesh subdivision algorithms available in EvoluteTools. This is by far one of the fastest ways of paneling and optimizing a freeform surface. Oh – so you have to change your design ? No problem – T-SPlines makes that easier for you and again you have a coarse mesh (TSplines mesh) ready for subdivision. You can even use EvoluteTools to optimize a T-Splines surface directly and set its vertices fixed or as corners. This saves significant amounts of time, headaches, coffee so ultimately it is better for this beautiful planet we live on. Get ahead, get the Bundle !
Well, it is not exactly the debut webinar, but it is very close to that. Thanks to Matt from TSplines we co-hosted a presentation on the 22nd of June showcasing the use of EvoluteTools together with TSplines, so we could consider that the real debut. Anyway, everybody is welcome (seats are limited though) and we hope you will enjoy the upcoming presentation. There are two things that will make this webinar special: first – we will work on a real world example – the YAS Island Marina Hotel in Abu Dhabi , viewers will have a chance to see how we used the Plugin in our consultancy work ; secondly – attendants will receive (by request) a 20% discount coupon that could be used for acquiring EvoluteTools for Rhino.
Back to the presentation: we will play with different patterns on the Gridshell and change its appearance to our desires (or to the viewers desires), optimizations like planarization, seam smoothness, vertex coplanarity and curve fitting, edge length and special subdivisions will also be employed in the process. The webinar addresses any individual involved in any aspect of building or designing a freeform structure: architects, designers, engineers, fabricators, contractors, cost estimators, project managers etc. If you are just a curious mind and you have nothing to do with freeform surfaces – we would also love to have you there. Seats are limited so register early:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/796322998
We thank everyone who participated in the interesting discussion that has been going on in the community for some weeks, about the two Patents SUPPORTING STRUCTURE FOR FREEFORM SURFACES IN BUILDINGS and SUPPORTING STRUCTURE FOR CURVED ENVELOPE GEOMETRIES.
We value different views on this topic as well as constructive comments or questions. We have collected some questions that seem to be of general interest and want to provide some answers from the Evolute side in this blog post. Some questions were very specific and were touching the legal interpretations of the patents scope and content. To provide a professional answer for this type of questions, we have asked our patent attorney to give his expert assessment.
Question: Which architectural applications are patented ?
Answer from our patent attorney: The patents are not restricted to a particular architectural application (external, internal, rain protection, wind shelter, building facade, etc.). The patents include all structures fulfilling the claims defined in the patents.
Question: How is “freeform” defined ?
Answer from our patent attorney: Within the scope of the patents, freeform structures are defined as approximations to freeform surfaces which are double-curved surfaces. The patents do not claim smooth and continuous freeform surfaces as they originate from mathematical models. Instead, the patents claim improved methods for practically realizing freeform structures in architectural and ship-building applications which approximate freeform surfaces, as well as the final freeform structures as such. Special cases, such as rotational or translational structures and their extensions by Schlaich et al, which were known before the patents were filed, are prior art and are not considered freeform in the scope of the patents.
Question: Do the patents still apply when slight variations or perturbations are introduced to the result ?
Answer from our patent attorney: In most cases Yes. A patent cannot be circumvented by practical tolerances or obvious tricks as long as the result still makes use of the patented invention.
Question: Why does Evolute “cash in twice”, once with the software Plugin EvoluteTools and once with the patent license fee ?
Answer from Evolute: This interpretation seems to originate from a misconception of some important facts:
1. The functionality of EvoluteTools goes way beyond the patented technology.
2. The patents do not only belong to Evolute while Evolute is the only developer of EvoluteTools so there has to be a clear separation of these two products.
3. One of the main target groups of EvoluteTools, the designers, are the ones that might like to acquire EvoluteTools since we believe it offers design capabilities not available in any other tool, BUT THEY ARE NOT the ones who should pay for the patent license fee ! The patent license fee should be paid by those who actually save money with the technology, that is, clients, developers, or contractors. And in our experience there is no reason why those parties should dislike the idea of paying some money to save a lot more money. As a designer, you should see EvoluteTools as a professional, versatile design tool and the patents as a product you can sell your clients to lower costs and improve aesthetics.
First, we would like to thank TSplines for setting up the contest and for welcoming us onboard as a sponsor, second, thanks to all the attendants for their hard work and for the inspiration we can draw from their designs, I hope they embark on making the World a better place in their daily lives too. As a sponsor for the Architectural Category we will provide the winner a full commercial bundle of our Plugin suite. Without further delay, here they are:
1st place winners:
Architecture: Cesare Monti, Torino, Italy
Transit: Joseph Culbert, Orange Beach, USA
Jewelery: Matthias Pfoetscher, Tirol, Austria
Consumer products: Felix Lorsignol, Montreal, Canada
Miscellaneous: Fernando Montalvo, Córdoba, Argentina
2nd place winners:
Architecture: Kevin Franklin, New Orleans, LA
Jewelery: Brian Hamilton, Omaha, NE
Consumer products: Josef Zaruba, Brno, Czech Republic
Honorable mentions:
Best manufactured design: Rehan Sheikh, Punjab, Pakistan
Best student design: Jili Huang and Anirudh Dhawan, Los Angeles, CA
Again, thank every one for their hard work, it is nice to see that new CAD tools provide designers and architects more flexibility and support their vision, we also like to thank everyone who tested our extended Trial version of our Plugin during the contest, we hope you enjoyed working with it.