Searching for the obviousMårten NettelbladtWhen you bend a thin strip of plywood you get a beautifully shaped curve. What geometry does this curve follow? There is a peaceful simplicity to the shape, and yet, it doesn't fall into the normal categories of basic geometric shapes as we know them. The exhibition shows two different ways to approach this challenge. Part one: A plywood strip, twelve meters long, curled and twisted into a double loop shape. This geometry is a result of the material trying to resist, and thereby minimize, the forces of bending and torsion. Part two: A computer generated surface, curling and twisting according to user input. Two lists of values control the curvature and the direction of the surface. The resulting single-curved surface will always be developable and unroll to a straight strip. Question: Is there a simple mathematical solution that will produce the same geometry as in the plywood loop? The search continues.Special thanks toDavid Rutten, McNeelAndy Payne & Jason K. Johnson, Firefly ExperimentsGrasshopper Forum
"About three years ago I wrote my thesis at TU Delft about timber grid shells and also tried to answer what geometry an elastically bent beam will have. The problem was that standard engineering formulas for deformation of beams exist, but are only valid as long as deformations remain small. Therefore I had to work it out in a more elaborate way using the concept of minimal potential energy."
Raw grasshoppers should be eaten with caution, as they may contain tapeworms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasshopper
MD-slider controlling Bending on Y-axes and twisting (left/right) on X-axes. Surface is Baked to Rhino and then unrolled to become flat and straight. Other versions here:
SPLINE: “A curve that closely approximates the shape of a strip of material that is gently bent; originally a draftsman's tool for drawing curves that represented the shapes taken by wooden and metal members of a ship's hull structure bent over fixed points or frames and, later, representing similar shapes in auto bodies and aircraft structures. A spline is the shape taken by bending material objects, like beams, that minimizes the elastic energy (or internal strain energy) stored in the beam. Mathematically, it is the smoothest curve that passes through a set of fixed points. In 3D modeling it is a curve defined by control points, often supplemented by interactive methods to modify tangents to the curve at these points and to adjust a local weighting factor. Bézier, B-Spline, and NURBS are commonly used types of splines.”
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