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You say you want some resolution?

QuickRes

I’m thankful for my recent discovery of QuickRes.

My 2009 MacBook recently died so I replaced it with a newer MacBook, and while I was considering the Retina models, I ultimately decided against them. It was mainly the resolution of the Retina MacBooks that interested me…

So when I connected my new MacBook to my old projector, I got nothing. Nothing! The old projector maxes out at 1024×768, and this fancy new MacBook only had two resolutions. What?

QuickRes

Wow, so many choices! 1280×800 and 1024×640. Why would you ever need more than two resolutions!?

So just to test the MacBook I grabbed a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI dongle and plugged it into the nearest television. I saw what appeared to be 1920×1080 not just on the television but also on the built-in display. What?

QuickRes

So after installing QuickRes, here’s a look at the resolutions that are now available. Sweet! I’ve been using the higher resolutions for certain tasks, and the lower ones for things like old projectors. So the real question is, why does Apple not want to make these available without a third-party hack to reveal them?

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Bay View Printing Company

Type

I stopped by the Bay View Printing Co recently to get some advice from Ashley Town about a project I’m working on. She was kind enough to give me a tour and show me some of the presses and other equipment, and I got to check out some of the type they have, including some of the wood type. which is just… beautiful.

Type

They’re about half way to their goal with an Indiegogo campaign to raise some funds. Here’s the pitch from Ashley:

I’m raising funds to be able to offer classes, workshops and open studio time focused on the art of letterpress printing and to transform a portion of the current space into a community gallery. The vision is to transform this Bay View institution into a creative hub for artists, designers, writers and letterpress novices and enthusiasts.

I personally think this place is a great addition to Milwaukee’s creative community, and would love to see it get fully funded.

Type

And hey, who else uses the hashtag #drinkandink? Check out the rest of the photos and their campaign video below.

Type

Type

Printing

Printing

Wood & Lead Type!

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2D plates from 3D objects

brocstl001

One of my, uh, “hobbies” is figuring out alternative workflows, or ways of solving a specific problem. I often do this with a bias towards open source or free software, because I like to know how to do things, and share how to do things, even when you don’t have expensive commercial software.

If you remember reading about Broc’s model in one of my Digital Fabrication posts, he mentioned using the “Unroll Developable Srf” function in Rhino to create flat pieces. Well, I have access to Rhino at UWM, but any piece of software on my own machines is preferable because I have easy and immediate access to it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Broc's STL in 123D Make

With this in mind, I set about trying to do what Broc did, without using Rhino. I ended up using 123D Make from Autodesk. It’s not open source, but it’s (mostly) free if you’re willing to create an account and share your personal info.

Broc's STL in 123D Make

123D Make has a bunch of nice options for breaking 3D objects into “slices” that can be assembled using various methods. (Supposedly there’s a beta version that does finger joint boxes.) It took a bit of tweaking things, but I was able to create slices just like the ones Broc made in Rhino.

Broc's STL in pieces

The output from 123D Make was a vector-based PDF file with all the parts in 2D.

Broc's STL in pieces

The PDF was easily imported into Inkscape, where it can be set up for being cut by a CNC machine. There’s a minimal amount of clean-up needed to remove any attachment tabs that the application generates. Try as I might, it did not allow me to put a value of zero on some of the parameters. Maybe in the next version. :/

(Oh, you could always print out paper templates and cut things the old fashioned way if you’re not a CNC user.)

Here’s a great promo video 123D Make that shows some of the slicing capabilities.

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What is Digital Fabrication and Design? (Part III)

What is Digital Fabrication and Design?

The first artist we had visit UWM for this year’s Artist Now! talks was Charles Beneke. His work tends to be in the areas of print-making and multi-media, but he did mention that he’s used laser cutters for some of his work.

Here’s part of his talk where he mentions using laser cut pieces:

Charles seemed to indicate that the laser cutter was just a way for him to speed up production. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this from an artist. Many artists seem to look for ways to make their current process easier, or faster, or both. Instead of cutting things by hand, they want a machine to cut them. Most of these artists don’t seem to view the laser cutter as a unique and primary tool to create work, but just a more advanced method of what they’d do anyway, with their own hands and a sharp blade.

Charles Beneke

In most cases though, these artists (and designers) are digitally designing things, and then using CNC machines to do at least a part of the production process, though I’m not sure any would say that they are working in the area of Digital Fabrication and Design.

(Previously: Part II, Part I)

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Vector to Raster and back…

Encoding Discs

While Inkscape is a great and powerful open source vector editing application, sometimes it can’t do it all. Since I primarily use it for creating files for laser cutters, vinyl cutters, the Egg-Bot, etc. I need to have lines. No fills, no objects sitting on top of other objects, no crazy intersections of paths, just lines.

I’ve found that on occasion it’s actually easier to export a raster image, re-import it, and trace it to get the needed vector file. I’ve done this for many files from OpenClipArt.org because they weren’t created with CNC uses in mind, but that’s what I use them for.

Back when I wrote my rotary encoding post I mentioned a perl script that could create encoding disks. It’s simple to use, and outputs an SVG file that I can open in Inkscape. Sadly, it’s not exactly what I need, but it’s pretty close, and easy to fix.

Encoding Disc

Here’s the disk that was created, which uses some neat SVG capabilities to generate it, but makes it quite difficult to edit using Inkscape. You can’t ungroup it, or break it apart, or use union or difference commands on it.

Encoding Disc

I’ve placed a smaller disk on top of it, Right now it’s gray (just so you can see it) but I’m going to fill it with white and give it no stroke. (Normally I would place one object on top of the other and use the difference command to cut a hole in the larger object. In this case, that can’t be done.)

Export at PNG

Once that’s done it looks like I want it to look, but it’s not all lines. It’s really overlapping objects. As long as it looks like I want it to look, I can export it as a bitmapped file. (A PNG file, to be precise.)

Import PNG

Here’s the PNG file. It’s raster, not vector, and again, it looks just like I want it to look. Excellent! Let’s go back to Inkscape and import the PNG file.

Trace Bitmap

Once imported I can use the Trace Bitmap command to easily change this black and white image into a vector file. (Yes, make sure it’s just pure black and white, so it can easily separate the two colors and create the needed path.)

Outline

After the bitmap has been traced I’ve got nice vector lines, shown here in outline mode, and it’s ready to be cut with a CNC machine. (Oh, I’ll probably add a center mounting hole, as the encoding disk eventually does need to attach to something.)