Vase builder

thingiverse

I'm really drawn to some of the vases I've discovered here, but being a hands-on type, I wanted to experiment with modifications. Quickly, I found myself grappling with math concepts I hadn't touched in over twenty years. This was an amazing learning experience and open-ended with boundless possibilities. This first post will showcase some of my early designs. I'll share additional ones later once I'm completely satisfied with them. I've printed these vases using ABS, HIPS, and PLA. I'd recommend a 1mm shell at 0.25mm resolution. Since these objects are hollow, you won't have to deal with infill or removing the top layer. I'm including the OpenSCAD files so others can enjoy playing with the designs as well. Be aware that the basic vase prints just fine at a lower granularity (higher numbers). You'll see the vertical and horizontal parameters (vgrain and hgrain) at the top of the file. The more complex vases need to have vgrain and hgrain set to 1, which takes forever to render. However, the designs do seem to scale well - for instance, the straight fluted vase in the picture was scaled up to 2 before printing. I've thoroughly commented on the OpenSCAD files, but here are some key points. Each vase is constructed by layers. Each layer is broken into wedges. The size is controlled by vgrain and hgrain. There's a mathematical formula that represents each layer. For the basic vases, this formula is just the trig function for a circle. Additionally, there's a mathematical formula that represents the vertical profile of the vase. In the basic vase file, I've included four profiles based on the cosine function and its harmonics. I've included a file called vase_profile.scad which allows you to quickly see what a profile might look like - it's how I came up with the profiles I'm using. Be aware that if you alter the formula for generating fluting or make the diameter too small, you may run into errors. What happens is the nice arc shapes actually generate loops that loop back on themselves, creating an invalid shape similar to what you might see from playing with a Spirograph as a kid. The loops cause the left points of the wedge to be less than the right points of the wedge and result in errors when rendered, even though they appear fine in the quick preview. Enjoy!