A team of Cornell University engineers have developed Endless Forms, a new interactive website that allows users to design their own things without any CAD drawing expertise.
The engineers explain that the growing fleet of 3-D printers is
largely idle because the availability of ‘content’ for them is
bottlenecked by the old design technologies like CAD that people don’t
know how to use or don’t have access to, stifling creativity.
The 3D Printing Industry is bottlenecked by people not knowing how to use CAD
Created by Jeff Clune, Cornell postdoctoral fellow; Jason Yosinski,
Cornell graduate student in engineering; and Eugene Doan, Cornell
undergraduate student, EndlessForms.com allows users to develop objects in the manner a gardener raises roses.
In the program, a number of objects are displayed, and the user
chooses objects they like. The liked objects are then mutated (in an
evolutionary sense) to produce the next generation of forms.
Over time, objects evolve and can be published by users. Visitors to
the site can further evolve, share, and rate designs, creating a
collaborative exploration that in many ways represents a new way of
thinking about design. Users can then have their objects fabricated by
3-D printing companies.
The site’s creators say that instead of being mired in technical
details, the new design tools free people to focus creativity,
eliminating the need for engineers to draw in CAD programs that can be
complicated and non-intuitive.
Andy Says:
I used it myself, and found that starting from scratch was a very
long process. I highly recommend that you start with one of the pre
generated forms.
This tool is an excellent way to teach children about evolution with
the added bonus of them being able to easily print their finished form
via a tool like Shapeways or download the STL file and have it printed
in a classroom 3D Printer.
