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Bowerbird is now available on Packhunt!
This Grasshopper plug-in helps you prepare your 3D model for laser cutting. It splits and flattens its parts to let you print and re-assemble them into your desired shape.
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PLUG-IN FOR GRASSHOPPER
Bowerbird the plug-in that is created by Thomas Oberbichler
“Rapid prototyping is critical when manufacturing with CNC machines,” says engineer Thomas Oberbichler, PhD candidate at the Technical University of Munich. “I started developing Bowerbird during my studies to quickly grasp how to best laser print a 3D model of a double-curved geometry from Rhinoceros. After reusing the same algorithms for some time, I decided to create a plug-in so that other Grasshopper users could make good use of it.”
BOWERBIRD PLUG-IN:
BBWAFFLE & BBRADIAL:
BBSECTION & BBLAYER:
Thomas Oberbichler
Author of Bowerbird.
Technische Universität München Ingenieurfakultät Bau Geo
Umwelt Lehrstuhl für Statik Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai-Uwe Bletzinger.
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PLUG-IN FOR GRASSHOPPER
Intertwining shapes
Starting from your 3D model, Bowerbird lets you turn it into different combinations of intertwining shapes. In the second phase, you can choose the thickness of each component, label them and, ultimately, align them on a flat surface—ready for the CNC machine.
“In the last months, I’ve implemented a function for the analysis of free form grid-shells inspired by the work of Eike Schling,” says Oberbichler. “For the future, I aim to make Bowerbird run faster and integrate an easy to use grid-shell technique. I’m happy to keep it open-source in case someone has some good ideas to improve it further.”
White Lioness technologies is more than happy to support the hard work of developers like Oberbichler. As a result, his open-source plug-in is now available on Packhunt for your use.
