3D Pottery Gallery
These are.. some of the best pieces I’ve ever created. Peak Karl art.
Did you know you can 3d print clay?
This page is intended as a gallery, so if you’re here for the process then check out the LF3DP page for more details. Here’s a quick teaser: a timelapse of the Spline Mug #16 being printed on the Autopot.ter conveyor.
Series:
Each series below represents a group of mathematically similar pieces. The pieces within a series have the same mathematical formula, but with slightly different parameters (provided by a random number generator) designed the base shape, and then added in some a random value such that every rendering of the same formula would produce a different shape or texture. Definitely check out Pottery Math for more details on the math behind these designs!
Tumbly Tumblers
Fidget-toys for whiskey drinkers! Tumblers with conical bases so they spin like a top. Designed so they don’t tip over, and a narrow neck to prevent spills. Check back soon for a video :)
Math: The math for this design is pretty simple; it’s radially symmetric, and the Texture is order 3 polynomial (defined in z,theta). The special texture of TT01 is caused by aliasing of the texture formula over the sample rate caused by the layer height! While aliasing is something to be avoided in fields like computer graphics, it can create stunning effects in pottery! Who knew?
Summer Vase
A narrowing of the “Summer Vase” design. I figured I play with the same base shape and different textures for a while.
Math: Apparently, if you multiply a bunch of bump functions by cos(theta), you get some really cool patterns! All of these functions were manually written and tweaked till I found something interesting. The first image is the original design, with just a few bump functions. The rest have the added cos(theta) term which adds a more 2d pattern.
Here’s a new approach with the same base shape with an eliptical cross-section, but different textures:
Math: This set uses functions in r=f(z) to determine the outer contour, and a central shift. The textures were all generated by adding in random number generators into the same texture formula for the Summer Vase design!
A.. further narrowing of the “Summer Vase” design? Both the outer shape, and the texture are fully random, i’d just click through auto-generated designes till i found one i liked to print.
Math: Same as the above, but with randomly generated Splines for the outer shape.
Martini Tumblers
Simple and elegant, these tumblers are printed with an extra thick base to add stability by lowering the center of gravity.
Traditional Tumblers
Basically the same design as the Martini Tumblers, but with a much better print success rate because they’re better supported during printing.
Spline Mugs
I spent way too much time trying to get the handles of these mugs to print corrently. Not only that, the computation of 6 stacked splines with about 30 control points each took way too long for rapid prototyping. It took about a minute to compute the functions and math for each of these. I pushed through for a while cause I thought everyone wants mugs.. turns out this was just a bad design.
Dual Color Extruder
My first attempt at dual-color printing using a 2-in-1 extruder.
