▼Lamina 1.0

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Lamina makes it easy to fabricate large scale free-form structures from planar (sheet) materials like plastic, metal, or plywood. This fabrication technology can be applied to interior design, building architecture, lighting, signage, clothing, and sculpture.

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Lamina uses computer methods to build precise physical structures in the real world. Your 3D model is approximated by a number of 2D parts that are numerically cut and attached to fabricate the final structure. Laser cutting, abrasive waterjet cutting and plasma cutting services are widely available and make creating parts inexpensive and fast.

Lamina reads input geometry in 3ds Max .3ds, Wavefront .obj or Stereolithography .stl formats, available for most 3d graphics softwares. Lamina can also read polygon meshes found in Rhino .3dm files. These files describe a shape as a list of triangles. In these file formats, the order of the triangles in the file is not significant. The surface is defined by the geometric connection of the triangles when adjacent triangles share an edge.

There are some constraints on the input triangle meshes that Lamina can handle.
One requirement is sometimes called the "vertex to vertex" rule. Any adjacent triangles must share two verticies so they connect in a water tight way. It is not acceptable for one triangle to have a vertex that is at some point along the edge of another triangle.
The order of the verticies in each triangle should be in a counter clockwise order when viewed from the outside of the object. If the right hand rule is applied to the three verticies, the resulting orientation points away from the solid object.
The triangle mesh should not intersect itself. And no edge can be shared by more than 2 triangles; a cube defined by 12 triangles is ok, but adding a diagonal baffle inside the cube is not ok. Other than this the input mesh can be an arbitrarily complex shell that might have any number of handles and may also have any number of holes in the surface.

The major difference between these formats is that Rhino .3dm, 3ds Max .3ds and Wavefront .obj files include per vertex normals, so source objects don't appear faceted, and Lamina can better recognize where to create divisions in the source object. If your file is in another format, use Rhino or some other modeling software to save the object in .3dm, .obj, .3ds or .stl format. If you are using Rhino for modelling, it's best to convert your NURBS surfaces to polygon meshes and save the file in Rhino .3dm format.

Sculpture fabrication

If geometric models are available, sculptures can be fabricated from plastic, metal or wood.

Interior design

Free form walls or other parts of an interior space can be fabricated by cutting wire mesh that is then assembled and covered with plaster or cement. Site specific duct work for heating and air-conditioning can be built.

Building architecture

Large scale structures built out of plastic or plywood. Rebar mesh sprayed with concrete. Lamina can produce precise plywood forms for concrete. Light-weight portable structures. Rapid fabrication of architectural models.

Lighting

Lighted translucent plastic shells for interiors. These can be very large scale lighted structures that are integrated into the architecture.

Aircraft

Parts of the outer form of aircraft can be fabricated from metal parts. Model airplane kits of planar parts that are assembled.

Furniture

Plywood, stainless steel, or plastic furniture.

Marine architecture

Hulls, and other boat components can be fabricated. Oddly shaped storage tanks for liquid or gas. Lamina can be used to create stitch and glue hulls.

Clothing design

Shoes, leather jackets, clothing.

Inflatable structures

Toys, lighting, hot air balloons, light-weight shelters.

Signs

Extruded letters with free form deformations. Graphic displays.

Micro and nano structures

Extremely small precise structures.

Thickness correction

This software takes into account the physical behavior of planar materials, and uses the material thickness to inset the edges of cutting paths to make parts that fit together with precision. Where parts join at right angles, the inset for an "Edge to edge" join is half the material thickness.

Angle correction

In addition to correcting for thickness, the angle between parts is taken into consideration when generating cutting path insets. The join angle and the appropriate inset may vary along edges.

Attachment geometry

Various kinds of attachment geometry are generated along the edges of parts.