Week 3 / Precedent Study - Physical Modeling

As precedent study, I have done some research about all architectural software (and plugin) that I have learned in Architectural Computing courses till now. For each software (or plugin), I've collected some export explanation from the official website, and also wrote down some comments based on my previous experience.

Physical Modeling

- Laser Cutting

Laser cutting is a technology that uses a laser to cut materials, and is typically used for industrial manufacturing applications, but is also starting to be used by schools, small businesses, and hobbyists. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cutting)

Rather than hand making, laser cutting have fast and flexible processing of different materials on one single system, and it’s accuracy of fit for single parts in high repeatability. Considering to chose acrylic as material to make physical model, I would like to use laser cutting for my project, because it’s hard to get things right by hand-making with material like acrylic.

- 3D Printing

3D printing is any of various processes for making a three-dimensional object of almost any shape from a 3D model or other electronic data source primarily through additive processes in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing)

The good thing is 3D printing can boost productivity with a high number of prototypes in less time than conventional methods. But for architectural model, the material of 3D printing model is too simplistic, which cannot show the aesthetics of building.

In my project, I would like to have a scaled physical model with different materials, to show the building as reality as possible. So I prefer to use laser cutting to make physical model.