Design of the Week: Saturn’s Wanderer

By on December 8th, 2014 in Design

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This week’s selection is the beautiful Saturn’s Wanderer by Professor Neri Oxman. 

Oxman has produced similar works previously, exploring both the magic of generative 3D models and the capabilities of Stratasys’ color 3D printing technologies. 

Oxman’s previous work was notable at the time as it appeared to use an unknown 3D printing process capable of printing colors. Now we know that was the beginning of Stratasys’ color Connex experiments. Her work shown at the Pompidou Centre in Paris while colorful actually was composed of only two colors ingeniously mixed together. 

Now Oxman has evidently been using Stratasys’ new three-color Connex3 technology. This particular work, Saturn’s Wanderer, used three specific colors: VeroClear, VeroYellow and VeroCyan, printed on an Objet500 Connex3 device. These three colors were digitally mixed together to create every hue seen in the work. 

We’re not sure of the artistic inspiration behind this work, but it is a female bust article, perhaps intended to be worn by someone of that specific size and contour. 

The work required to generate this model is impressive, as the Connex3 technology requires creating a separate STL shell for each individual color – and then setting the color mix for it. If you look closely at the detail image here, you can imagine the number of shells required for this work. Impressive!

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!