Chris's Stuff.

[Originator]

Very quality work. Perfectly fitted hand and a skull!

[Chris Botha]

I mentioned tsplines once in the video? Does that give the right to spam it here?

actually a few peopel have queried me on the process of milling, there is a "belief" that the wax is treated after milling to make it smoother, or cleaner.. these queries are mostly made by people who are used to "printing" waxes on lower end t66 type printers. The video was posted to my blog in answer to these questions so that users could see a job "hot off the mill". its going to be produce in platinum with pink diamonds.

hope you folks find it of interest.

the renders of the job etc are on my blog here

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/20 ... video.html

[Chris Botha]

very simple ring.. very difficult to get it nutted out correctly.. one pice is solid, the other slides into it, in a twist motion and they lock together like puzzle, one white, one yellow.

I tried sweep1 with multiple profiles, then sweep2 with multiple profiles, then surface modelling, then raw tsplines. All methods were not giving what I needed.. shape right.. profiles wrong.. profile right, shape wonky.. etc..

so married the process.. did a sweep one with single curve along the rail.. then rebuilt the surface downwards to smooth it.. then converted to tsplines and rotated around world origin with copy and history, and poked the edge loops one by one till I got the shape and profile i was looking for.. back to nurbs, split edge, and blendsrf to cap them off.

at least an hour of doing it wrong, to figure out how to do it right in under 10 minutes.. typical... damn rhino.. too many paths to a result..

hmmm.jpg (19.95 KiB) Viewed 16272 times

[Chris Botha]

skellie's hands done.. love that shiny tsplines surfaces!

DSC_1758.JPG (90.72 KiB) Viewed 16248 times

[Chris Botha]

The Cross

Follow up on blog.

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/2011/05/cross.html

The brief was to make an ornate cross, 90mm high by 65mm wide with scrolly work in it..

I drew the base with Rhino to get us as far as a weight estimate then filled it in with tsplines for the curly wurly stuff

The Tsplines base geometry


A close up of the geometry layout


and the render.


Deskproto(64bit) made childs play of the 116mb mesh file...


then off to the mill.. roughing.. big ol block of wax


and after the rough out on three sides the final pass with a fine cutter


and finally the first cut is done, the two short arms..





here is a quick clip to keep you interested untill the next post




edit:

the long bit finished.. only the knuckle left

[JSantocono]

Hi Chris,
Thanks for posting these great images of the process!
I love to see that.

JuanS

[Chris Botha]

no worries..

I built a few "Tcollets" some time back but have not had chance to use them yet, basically tstorus, radial symmetry and some extruded faces then weighting some edges.

not complex, hope it helps some jewellers, these collets are always crappy to make in rhino, and keeping them "smooth".

Tcollet [640x480].JPG (48.27 KiB) Viewed 16209 times

IMG_1220 [640x480].JPG (48.69 KiB) Viewed 16209 times

IMG_1222 [640x480].JPG (46.26 KiB) Viewed 16209 times

[oliviertij]

It's amazing how easily you seem to find the good Tsplines " arrangement "...
And so quickly : it looks like you were working each day on a different project.
I'm also in jewelry, but I'm trying to work with that wonderful software since so many months with less success than you...

Congratulations M Botha, I'm very impressed.
And thank you very much for sharing, and explaining how you do.

Olivier

[Chris Botha]

Thank Olivier

I have to admit that i think tsplines is more suited to the way i like drawing. its more natural to jewellery and closer to the way i think about making jewllery.. bending, pushing, pulling , warping, so its 'simpler' to produce clean shapes.

The only thing that still drives me nuts is the '/' or ctrl+space key to flip in and out of tsplines mode to type commands, unfortunately im a command line heavy user so this gets me everytime..

minor annoyance tho compared to what you get back. I had a nasty shank.. well nasty to model in rhino anyhow, it was literally a 5 minute tsplines thing.

tsplines surface3.jpg (17.75 KiB) Viewed 16193 times

tsplines surface.jpg (35.2 KiB) Viewed 16193 times

johny tech.JPG (39.64 KiB) Viewed 16193 times

Johny 1.jpg (17.87 KiB) Viewed 16193 times

and just because I am perverse I will be attempting to remodel this project, using tsplines this time, last time round it was pure rhino, no plugins at all.. everyone si trying to convince me to use panelling tools for those scales but to be honest its simpler to just flowalongsrf.. And im too tired to learn yet another plugin.. heheheh

original bangle project here (and its finally finished

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/20 ... oubus.html

oro5.jpg (46.79 KiB) Viewed 16191 times

watch thsi space for the tsplines version.

[oliviertij]

Not enough of my life to study your posts...
I will be very glad to learn a little bit more about how you did the dog you showed, in the post of the 28th of march.
Please.

[Chris Botha]

heheh .. that is the most wonky dog I have ever seen. I am sure it walks with a limp..but I am happy to knock up a quick video for you, it was a simple quadball thing, need to be bit patient tho, im on an article for a jewellery magazine right now, chewing up my free time.. maybe next week or so

[Chris Botha]

this back from casting, will post finished pics once the bale si on, the bale will feature a st christopher. I am having trouble sharing larger images for some reason , they dont autoresize here, the full size images on the blog.

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/2011/05/cross.html

IMG_1232.JPG (49.56 KiB) Viewed 15959 times

[Matt Sederberg]

Beautiful.

[Chris Botha]

thanks

I have been helping someone over on 3dcadjewelry forum.. sharkfin ring, regular vs tsplines.

no big shakes but it gets my post count up?

right hand ring is , curve, extrude, filletedge, cageedit.

left hand ring is tsplines. workflow time, about the same. the look? depends on your vantage point, i prefer the tsplines version.

regards
Chris

i be spliningR (Custom).jpg (28.55 KiB) Viewed 15939 times

[Chris Botha]

quadball. push , pull, and 5 minutes you haev a pretty good shape. its after this it all falls apart for me (i was only helping someone witha workflow scenario, thank goodness I dont have to add the detail)

Still two months ago I would not even attempted this type of surface.

Capture.JPG (27.45 KiB) Viewed 15862 times

[oliviertij]

Hello Chris. Please, tell me who do I have to kill to see how you did the dog ?

The work flow seems to be very simple, although so detailed. Was it tspipe for the body, and quadball for the head ?

[Chris Botha]

shucks.. i forgot.. ok ill try do vid tommorow

[Chris Botha]

not much .. but it pays

tspipe rocks!

and some cleaning later (the noise is the iphones pathetic inability to handle environemtal noise)



and done.

IMG_1273.JPG (34.47 KiB) Viewed 15768 times

[Chris Botha]

slightly better tsplines model to chunk into.. only the centre head tho.

IMG_1265 (Small).JPG (26.23 KiB) Viewed 15745 times

IMG_1266 (Small).JPG (32.04 KiB) Viewed 15745 times

Capture.JPG (33.19 KiB) Viewed 15744 times

[Chris Botha]

hey guys.. not had time to test tsplines yet but I got a new tablet for myself.. retired my ipad.. (actually I traded it for a treadmill, and bought myself a real tablet)

it runs matrix 6.3 and also Sculptris and Moi quite fine.. I will upload a video fo a tsplines sculpt when i get a minute.

The tablet is a ep121 asus slate pc, 64gb ssd, i5, 4gb ram, win7 64bit.

[Chris Botha]

ok, done!

did a quick vid .. I was quite surprised at how easily it ran on the slate...
required some toolbar building.. still not perfect but pretty close... an abomination crossover of my shortcuts and my PC touchscreen interface i worked out on my main design pc.

[JSantocono]

Hi Chris, pretty cool, I need one of those.
Thanks for sharing this videos!
JuanS

[Chris Botha]

no problems

info collected here,

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/20 ... p-121.html


I love the device, its a laptop in a tablet form. Like everyone else I fell into the apple trap. design and form.. and only found out too late.. no functionality or interoperability with other real world technology, think HDMI, USB, USB HD/USB DVD, SD, Flash, camera etc, not to mention having to void your warranty by jailbreaking it to get real world use from it.

I do mill installs in the craziest of places and I needed a device I could take in and stay connected to the web. I found out too late that simply being connected to the web did not mean i could do anything usefull.. like take pictures and transfer them to websites etc. Even if you buy the camera transfer connector (usb/SD) you still cant do anything with it other than email , facebook, picasa. Try posting an image on this forum for example.... requires uploading to online server, then grabbing a link and pasting into IMG holders... yucky...

My ipad was left on the coffee table.. kids played angry birds, and doodle jump...

SO.. the day came when a friend of mine who works from a multinational engineering firm asked for my help in researching tablets (they will order from 200 to 800 units) and we researched and drove around testing heasp of devices.. FUN!!!! (cant believe how happy computer shops are to help you when they know a huge order in on the cards.)

The results ended up as follows.

1: Pc/Win7 based tablets. (slower, less slick, most usefull, ultimate compatability with other tech, medium battery)
2: Android Tablets (faster, slicker, filesystem, better compatability with other tech, good battery)
3: Linux based Tablets. (Fastest actually, not slick at all, pretty complex, medium compatability, medium battery)
4: Apple Tablets (Fast, super slick, least usefull, zero compatability with other tech, best battery)

So the firm is going to buy a big chunk of ep 121 units for the working guys, and ipads as toys for upper management.

Each device has its own strong points. I got rid of my apple, and bought the ep121, but i have to say that i was very tempted to get the acer iconia tab... that little device is NICE!

At the end of the day i went with the device that would allow me to do the most on the run.. I cannot wait for win8 with the metro ui to come out.


[edit] mods, please move to Technology part of forum, this post and the one before it, i didnt realise there was such a section, my apologies.

[EDIT2] had a few pokes about my toolbar, so here it is. please feel free to edit and reupload any cool features you think would make it more usefull for touch

(posted from ep121.. using Apple iphone MyWi for connection, dont you just love technology! (i overshot my bandwidth allocation from my isp.. who would thunk you could use 200gb in 20 days...)

[JSantocono]

Interesting info..., Thanks for sharing.
JuanS

[Chris Botha]

Hello Chris. Please, tell me who do I have to kill to see how you did the dog ?

The work flow seems to be very simple, although so detailed. Was it tspipe for the body, and quadball for the head ?

got to it at last more like a surprised monkey than a dog, but you will get the idea

i didnt do the body but, yes its just tspipe.. the head was not dissimilar to this workflow.

[edit] some while later i reopened while lazing on my couch with the tablet.. looks alittle better

[Chris Botha]

some tsplines wedding band action.. nice use of tsplines to quickly alter the bands into new shapes.

these will be inhouse samples to explain what types of wedders can be worn next to huge stones.

rings.JPG (20.41 KiB) Viewed 15657 times

IMG_1275.JPG (34.02 KiB) Viewed 15657 times

[oliviertij]

Hi Chris, thanks for the videos !
I guess that with your new toy, we can ask for more...

Have a nice day.

[Chris Botha]

this sucker finished at last!

blog updated.

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/2011/05/cross.html

the St Christopher and chain added.



and as an idea of scale.. (and how handsome I am..)

[JSantocono]

[Chris Botha]

$%^#$^%$^#$^%^^##$^%^&%#$%$#%#$^ (the jewellers know why im swearing...)

(thats all im going to say.. thank goodness for tspipe with history and ts edgeloops...)

puzzle.jpg (23.35 KiB) Viewed 15566 times

puzzle2.jpg (14.51 KiB) Viewed 15566 times

puzzle3.jpg (21.23 KiB) Viewed 15566 times

puzzle4.jpg (23.63 KiB) Viewed 15566 times

[Chris Botha]

guys, there is a full blow by blow, tsplines fitted wedder here,

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/20 ... g-new.html

hope no one minds me linking as well, the way this forum handles images makes it hard to post my images without drastically resizing them first.

I recently sold my MDX-15 scanner, it which was a great help when doing wedders.. so typically when my next fitted wedder comes along I had to reinvent the wheel for myself.. (funny how quickly you become reliant on technology)

the ring is to be "flowy" but to sit snug on the ring surface as well..

"flowy" = T-Splines of course.. fitted.. well thats another story.. so I married old and new.

I brought some pictures of the ring into Rhino and scled them, then using a tsplines torus primitive I made a band, grabbed a few edgeloops and pushed and pulled till it looked about right.. remembering to leave it a touch wider for step2.



The lovely wife them milled the wax blank for me and time for step 2, which is basically melting the master ring into the wax pattern.. this is how I was taught to do it as an apprentice.

I placed the original ring down on a steel surface and lightly warm the metal.. heat here is critical.. too hot and you destroy the blank, to cold and it does not impress on the wax.

HEAT and PRESS!



carefully you separate the two, too much force will break the wax, but hopefully you end up with a perfect press fit

[Adam Helps]

Very nice. That four-part twisted ring is very nearly identical to my wedding band . Are you manufacturing that one?

[Chris Botha]

Hi Adam,

Nope, just an exercise to see how hard it would be

you can buy these all over the web,

http://www.google.com/search?q=puzzle+r ... 25&bih=839

but be warned, if they come apart.. ewwwwwwwwwww

[Nicholas North]

Chris,

Just wanted to say that seeing your current avatar (VIC-20, "The Friendly Computer") made me smile.

The VIC-20 was my first computer. (In fact, I still have it in a closet somewhere!) Tinkering with that machine is how I got introduced to computer programming.

-- Nick

[Chris Botha]

Letting your age hang out here dude


hahahah.. believe it or not, in another life i learned programming, and the vic-20 was how i learned BASIC and its flavour of assembler/mnemonic code.. I quit it as the 80386 came out cuz I just got the craps with having just learned x86 ASM, Pascal and C, then the buggers add new EAX registers and new addressing modes for the registers... confusulamated me intensely.. I still have Peter Nortons Blue Bible of programming here somewhere.. (reckon an original must be worth a mint now...)


I eventually gave up programming to make jewellery because only nerds programmed and you would never make money with it anyway..just ask bill gates and steve jobs

(i dabble in VB now and to tweak existing code related to CNC but thats it.)

[Chris Botha]

i like em tsplines.. i surely do...

crest ring..

then extract zbuffer image to convert sucker to archaic 2.5 needed for the job..

glad i machine my stuff and wont need to be stitching this ring together...

[Chris Botha]

then into matrix art to lift a 2.5 shape, invert and pop onto a shank...

(added this as an after thought.. to complete first post..)

[oliviertij]

Hello Chris.

Well, I guess you know what I think about your work, so no need to congratulate you once more...

Looking at your work, I believing you prefer working an intuitive way, but do you use Grasshopper sometimes ?
I took two day with the great Phil Shapiro in Paris to start learning Grasshopper. I didn't believe there were sooooooo many possibilities.

[Chris Botha]

Hi Olivier

Thank you for the compliment, and nope, no grasshopper. I do see the value in it but I dont use it for the same reason I didnt buy 3Design. Jewellery in my case is mostly a heap of one off jobs, each unique, so a parametric tool has little to no value for me. Matrix has its own incantation of history which gets me mostly where i need to be, albeit a little heathen..

If you think generative or parametric design is something you can really use then do yourselfa favour and grab a demo of 3Design. The have their own polymodellor in it too.. ummm 3shaper I think they call it.

[Chris Botha]

watched video on organic walls in tutorial thread.. got inspired!

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/20 ... e-art.html

organic ring.JPG (34.27 KiB) Viewed 15272 times

organic ring2.JPG (36.31 KiB) Viewed 15272 times

[oliviertij]

Yeh, I really do like your stuff ! I was just doing a quick view of of an architectural decor for a role playing game exactly the same appearence ! It must be funny to work with you.
About 3d design and Matrix, I can only imagine, because my boss don't want to start a collection... And that's ok for me, I'll feel like commiting adultery to Rhino and Tsplines.
Grasshopper's free and for Rhino, but if you allow me, for the few I saw, you can make a defintion for one case, and use it for something completly different, since you assign the same kind of component ( curve, points, breps... ). I also work on unique pieces, and I believe GH will be very helpful. When I'll be able to use it
If I find some interesting things, I'll post. ( Not before several months, I'm quite slow to learn .)
Since, if s.o hear mention of tutorials, that will help !

[Matt Sederberg]

watched video on organic walls in tutorial thread.. got inspired!

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/20 ... e-art.html

organic ring.JPG

organic ring2.JPG

Wow, I like this.

[Chris Botha]

my first t-spline signet.. (edit, actually my second) typically this would have been an Artcam style job.. I tried matrix art to firtsly draw it. (FAIL!) then i tried the method above of grey-scaling the zbuffer and lifting in matrix art (to overcome the undercut areas which would not let me boolean the negative impression nicely) and that failed too.. eventually I just did a heightfield and split/trim..

I did not take pics of the first failed wax unfortunately to highlight the failings of the 2.5d method but happily this way worked out just fine.

[Chris Botha]

done and dusted.. full article here

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/20 ... unner.html



the head halo was my first attempt at lifting micropave prongs in tsplines, and i have to admit that while it was fun its not the best way to do it, very slow.. but I am working on a job not that was MADE for tsplines... watch this space..

[Chris Botha]

For the Aussie jewellers, I have a three page article coming out in September in the printed edition of Australian Jeweller, about CAD in the jewellery industry.

http://www.jewellermagazine.com/Jeweller.aspx

and it will feature images from the t-splines cross I did some time back here

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com/2011/05/cross.html

This magazine goes out to almost every jeweller in Australia, hope you guys enjoy

Regards
Chris

[Chris Botha]

some tspliney goodness.. still not able to show the big job i was bragging about but this can tide you over

all tsplines

(edit) added pics

IMG_1427.JPG (56 KiB) Viewed 14791 times

IMG_1426.JPG (49.34 KiB) Viewed 14791 times

[Chris Botha]

this one finished.. thats a beeeeg ol chunk of 18ct...

IMG_1391.JPG (41.95 KiB) Viewed 14910 times

[Chris Botha]

yawwwwwwwwwwwn.. man been a hard few weeks, sorry not been posting more.. not much by way of tsplines work going down, was this little vine ring tho.

IMG_1521.JPG (49.82 KiB) Viewed 13782 times

IMG_1520.JPG (53.67 KiB) Viewed 13782 times

[Chris Botha]

wowo.. sometimes you jsut ave to give them what they want, remodel of load and loads of diamonds into a single ring....

IMG_1497.JPG (34.77 KiB) Viewed 14055 times

IMG_1498.JPG (35.23 KiB) Viewed 14055 times

to this

no need for Tsplines, i jsut used it cuz i wanted to!!

[Matt Sederberg]

Wow.