CategoriesMedium and Techniques
Computer-Aided Manufacturing
Objects produced when a digital model drives a machine, such as a 3D printer, CNC router or laser cutter, to make the physical form.
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About
Computer-aided manufacturing turns a digital model into a physical object. The file drives a machine: a CNC router or mill carves the form out of a solid block, a laser cutter traces flat parts, or a 3D printer builds the shape up in thin layers of plastic, resin or metal. Numerically controlled machine tools appeared in the early 1950s, but only around 2000 did the tools reach many designers and artists.
Architects led the way: Frank Gehry's office adapted aerospace software to engineer the curving titanium of the Guggenheim Bilbao (1997). In furniture, Patrick Jouin's Solid chairs (2004) were grown by stereolithography, and the Swedish group Front printed chairs and lamps from hand gestures traced in the air in Sketch Furniture (2005). Look for faint stepped ridges from layer printing, fine parallel tool paths on routed surfaces, and lattices or interlocking parts no hand could make.
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