Lamina Design

Lamina Design

Perhaps one day our home will be reduced to just
our skin, infinitely sophisticated...

    --Guy Rottier

Latest news...

6 Aug 2007: Support for Rhino version 4 files
Yes, Rhino file support is 33.3333% better! Lamina can now read new Rhino version 4 .3dm files. If you purchased a copy, please feel free to download the latest version.

9 Sept 2006: Talk presented at 4OSME
I gave a talk "Building Free-Form Structures From Sheet Material" at The Fourth International Conference on Origami in Science, Mathematics, and Education (4OSME) at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, USA.

22 May 2006: Transmaterial available in print
A newly published book called Transmaterial is now available. It catalogs innovative architectural materials and methods. The authors were kind enough to include a page on Lamina Design software.

3 Feb 2006: New Lamina user guide
The new Lamina user guide provides a sequential task oriented guide to using Lamina 1.0.

14 Jan 2005: Support for Rhino .3dm files added
The latest version of Lamina supports reading polygon meshes from Rhino .3dm files.

1 Dec 2004: Lamina appears in The Architectural Record
The Architectural Record includes a review of Lamina 1.0 in the December 2004 issue.

About Lamina software

Lamina 1.0 makes it easy to fabricate large scale free-form structures from planar (sheet) materials like plastic, metal, or plywood. This fabrication technology can be applied to interior design, building architecture, lighting, signage, clothing, and sculpture.

Lamina 1.0 uses computer methods to build precise physical structures in the real world. Your 3D model is approximated by a number of 2D parts that are numerically cut and attached to fabricate the final structure. Laser cutting, abrasive waterjet cutting and plasma cutting services are widely available and make creating parts inexpensive and fast.

An example

A sculpture fabricated from waterjet cut stainless steel welded and sanded.



Thickness correction

This software takes into account the physical behavior of planar materials, and uses the material thickness to inset the edges of cutting paths to make parts that fit together with precision. Where parts join at right angles, the inset for an "Edge to edge" join is half the material thickness.



Angle correction

In addition to correcting for thickness, the angle between parts is taken into consideration when generating cutting path insets. The join angle and the appropriate inset may vary along edges.



Attachment geometry

Various kinds of attachment geometry are generated along the edges of parts. Some examples are shown in the sequence below.



Lamina 1.0 product available now

The product version of Lamina 1.0 is here. Please give it a try!

Note

Some of the technology in Lamina 1.0 is covered by U.S. Patent No. 6,819,966

Lamina Design