Inspired by the concept of a sound wave, and the beauty of poured silver, I designed a bracelet based on a waveform.
First, I uploaded the file that I wanted to see the waveform of. Wavesurfer was a great tool for visualizing the sound. Then, I imported that file and vector traced it in Adobe Illustrator (and I made the thick empty trace shapes you can see in the image).
I took that vector file, opened it in AutoCAD and separated out the pieces from the waveform vector. I also added the circles and modified the links to be in spec with the requirements for sculpteo and shapeways. This took the longest time, other than making the links all one piece. In order to make the links all in one piece, I first drew out a layout for the shapes on paper and then arranged each of the links most efficiently in a square in AutoCAD. Then I drew some angled barrels between each of the things, making them to spec (minimum inlet size needed to be 0.8 mm).
After drawing everything, I imported the AutoCAD file into Illustrator (each of the segments were on different layers so they could be handled differently in Illustrator), had to do some Sketch Doctoring but I extruded the links and rotated each of the interconnects.
Ultimately I made the 3D CAD, sent it in to Sculpteo, and sat on my hands and waited for the pieces to ship.
When I got the pieces, I trimmed them with wire cutters and sanded everything down. Silver is very soft, so it’s easier to over polish. The hardest part was definitely figuring out how to turn the links into a bracelet because of how small the holes were (0.8 mm). The trick is probably going to be a jewelry hole press.
The final product!
