2016-01-07
       
       Dice & Diamond Lattice
       
 (IMG) Image 1
       
       Last year I sent a few projects to Ponoko to be laser cut from
       transparent acrylic. Here's some impressions on the process and the
       results.
       
       
       The process is dead simple, just design the thing as an svg file
       (templates for different sizes are available on their site) and
       sent it to be cut. The three types of cuts you can use are 1) the
       basic cut, 2) engraving cut, and 3) raster shading. These are
       defined via line/fill colours.
       
       There are a few minor grievances: the system only accepts lines
       defined to be a certain, microscopic width, so you can't see
       anything if you use the actual line widths. It would have made more
       sense to use a line width of the laser (0.2 mm), which would have
       made adding margins intuitive. The file upload/material selection
       UI is a bit clunky, forcing you to go through a bunch of menus to
       select correct material, size and thickness each time. Postage to
       outside US is prohibitive, but I managed to use a 'murican
       middlewoman to reduce it.
       
       The cut quality is pretty consistent, but adding 0.1 mm of margin
       sometimes results in a dangerously snug fit (acrylic is pretty
       brittle), sometimes a loose fit. Ponoko has tutorials on fighting
       this by using convex edge sections, but my things were too small to
       utilize this.
       
       Enough whining, here's what I got. This is the structure of a
       diamond, inspired by someone (can't find the site) making a 3D go
       'board' out of zigzagging wire.  
       
 (IMG) Image 2
 (IMG) Image 3
       
       I made also an animation in Blender of the construction.
       
 (HTM) Video
       
       A clear cube, and  a dice with the same structure. A bit hard to
       read.
       
 (IMG) Image 4
 (IMG) Image 5
       
       You can buy these from my Etsy shop .