Btech 2014 Computer Aided Design (CAD)

The future of jewellery design and manufacture is computer aided design as it reduces manufacturing time and can create the most accurate of pieces without any of the issues related to manufacturing by hand. When one opens the Rhino program on occasion a popup screen appears on the far right of the computer screen,that outline, “Rhino is a 3d free-form modeller you can use to create anything from a heart valve to a ship hull and from a mouse to a monster”.

Figure 14

The process of creating this piece in Rhino for the purposes of rendering was quite time consuming. It took over 8 hours to achieve. The pre-existing neckpiece helped as one could take accurate measurements, this was the simpler part of the manufactured work to render in CAD[1] Figure 14 shows the progression from where the CAD rendering process started with simple line and shape. After the basic shape of the necklace, figue14.1 it was time to create the focal points of the piece. Creating one half of the piece and mirroring it to create the second half. These two halves put together created the blue drop bead figure14.2. The simplest part of the process was creating the jump rings; figure 14.3 from which the second pendant hangs. It requires the jump rings to allow it more movement as the blue bead is stationary. The creation of the pendent figure 14.4 follows the same method as figure 14.2.

Figure 14.1

Figure 14.2

Figure 14.3

Figures 14.4

Challenges with creating weaving in Rhinoceros

The tendency is for one to substitute the weaving with mesh figure 15 to mimic the hand woven style in Rhino does not always give the best result. The weaving creates challenges as the Rhino file becomes so big that the computer slows down or the CAD program simply stops functioning. Figure 16 is an example of the problem encountered. The file size of figure 16 is 178830KB, to make one alteration to the piece takes the computer 1.5 minutes to respond, a function that should be almost instantaneous. Figure 16.1 took a full 5 min to achieve.

Figure 15

Figure 16

Figure 16.1

One can conclude that Rhinoceros is an important CAD program in addition to the extensive possibilities in its uses. The computers atones disposal simply do not carry adequate memory to attempt very intricate weaving techniques as employed. In my work I explore the options of substituting the techniques with existing Rhino techniques of meshing to represent the knotting technique or using millions of jump rings for the representation of the wrapping and coiling technique of weaving as in figure 16.

[1] CAD abbreviation for Computer Aided Design