Partitioning and Assembly of Gosper Sculptures
Carlo H. Séquin

Hyperseeing: Proceedings of Shape Creation Using Layouts, Programs, & Technology (SCULPT) 2022
Pages 13–28
Short Papers

Abstract

This paper addresses the technical challenges of physically realizing some tubular geometrical sculptures, using two examples from opposite ends of a spectrum of possible Gosper sculptures. A first example concerns a large-scale metal sculpture of a Gosper-Ball with only 38 tubular segments, but which still exhibits the characteristics of a 3D Gosper curve quite nicely. The challenge is how to accurately assemble the 38 tubular pieces while realizing the required angles at all 38 joints. The paper presents a judicious partitioning of the overall sculpture and some simple jigs that help to put the different sub-assemblies together. The second example concerns 3D-printing of desk-top models of complex Gosper-Globes with up to 756 segments, where a variant of a 2D plane-filling Gosper curve is constrained to a spherical shell. The lengthy tubular loop representing the Gosper curve requires a lot of support material during the additive fabrication phase. This support material is difficult to remove from the inside of the spherical shell. Partitioning the shell into a few smaller domains reduces this problem without unduly complicating the assembly of the overall sculpture.

Files
>