3D Printed Ball Gown Dress Inspired Light
Tools & Materials
Project Description
How does a ball gown dress become a 3D printed light fixture?
One type of project that I’m looking forward to 3D printing are light fixtures because the machine is capable of taking 3D models with organic shapes and seamlessly constructing them in real life. As my first light fixture design, I was inspired by the way that ball gown dresses flow when they’re being spun. The folds of the fabric and the patterns of light and shadows that are created along its surface is captivating.
Using a software called Rhinoceros, I developed a 3D model with simple commands including circle, array circle, trim, extrude, taper, rotate surface, and boolean difference. I started by drawing a circle that was large enough to fill most of the printing bed size of my Prusa MK3S+. I drew a smaller circle with its center on the line of the original one and used the array circle command to duplicate multiple copies of it. I used the trim command to clean up the overlapping lines so that only the exterior lines that were touching were connected.
Next, I extruded the shape and transformed it by tapering the top surface inward and rotating it. I came up with several options at different rotations to see which one looked the most like what I envisioned. Once I selected the final design, I extruded a circle where the light bulb would be installed and used the boolean difference command to cut it out of the shade.
