Shapeways Project

Brainstorming and mood board

More inspiration

Designing

Iteration #1 — CAD geography file

I imported map data from CADmapper and isolated the areas I wanted in Rhino. I'm currently thinking about how I'm going to work with the data in Grasshopper and how I'm going to simplify the design — probably either by using larger streets or transit routes.

Iteration #2 — SVG from simplified map PNG

I realized that using all the geographic data would be too complicated, both for the design and for Grasshopper/Rhino to handle. Leia helped me find a website called snazzymaps.com where I could simplify a Google map area and download it as a png, and then I used the website vectorizer.ai to convert the png into vectors and downloaded that as an svg.

I uploaded the svg into Rhino and worked on simplifying and trimming it. I saw that the distance between the vectors would be too small for the dimension requirements for Shapeways, however, so I looked at using Grasshopper to scale the curves. While this worked for some of the curves, for others it created places where curves overlapped, making more problems in the design.

Inner curves at 90% size

Inner curves at 60% size

When the simplified street geometry didn't work, I tried importing vector files of the SF neighborhood districts, but it didn't import scaled with the correct proportions, so I tried to scale it myself using the simplified street geometry as a reference (I wasn't able to get it to completely line up, as seen above). At this point I realized that it would still be extremely difficult to make the geometry from these vectors to be simple enough to create a smooth design for Shapeways.

Iteration #3 — BART routes from pdf

I realized I needed to drastically simplify my design, so I decided to use the BART map design to create curves. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out dimensions that would fit the Shapeways tolerances, but eventually I figured out a design that would be accepted and that I was happy with. I also changed the object design from a large piece of wall art to a small earring/pendant design, in order to fit the budget and make fitting the sizing requirements easier.

Final Design