**pronounce in Australian accent, quote by drag performer [Courtney Act](https://rupaulsdragrace.fandom.com/wiki/Courtney_Act)*
**TO DO**<br>
add files<br>
upload images to folder for exhibition<br>
*The mannequin at Nike's London flagship store that sparked outrage earlier this year. Image by Nike.*
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@@ -151,6 +155,8 @@ It sounds like this person deserves a statue for this. Here's what she ended up
The process was something as follows. I started by boxing in the body, in order to "chop" off the body parts I imagined not needing (this changed later on). For this I used the *Box* command, combined with *Rotation*, *Move*, *Mirror*, *Scale1D* (for stretching the box longer for example) and some other basics. I use "ortho" or hold shift for most commands, to work in straight lines. It gives me more control. When the model is finally boxed in, I could cut the body parts in the boxes using *MeshBooleanIntersect*.
Note to self: what I forgot about is that you can turn a Mesh into a NURBS object (a solid again) and then manipulating the 3D model with Boolean commands is easier and gives more options. Remember to group the objects. Thanks @Cecilia.
@@ -226,22 +232,53 @@ I installed [Slicer for Mac](https://apps.autodesk.com/FUSION/en/Detail/Index?id
I played around with the different techniques and settled on the *folded panels* technique and made some decisions about my material (see above). Then I put in the dimensions of my material and looked at the plans and the errors. My pieces were way too big for the material so I had to add a lot of seams.
There's quite a nice basic tutorial written by Fabian Morón Zirfas & University of Applied Sciences Potsdam that I looked over [here](https://fh-potsdam.github.io/doing-papercraft/slicer/)
<br>
*the amount of space piece 1 would need (see dark gray reference box for size of the material I'm able to buy, woops haha)*
I ended up with 6 sheets, which I thought was good enough. But the nesting algorithm of the slicer software isn't optimal, so did that manually in Illustrator and was able to fit them onto 4 sheets, and still make a lifesize mannequin. Werk.
## Cutting the design plans
After I ran a test it became clear that the slots I had for my design were not going to be big enough to give the structure any integrity and would only work as orientation markers. I tried getting the design sliced with bigger slots but the very narrow vertices cannot accommodate tabs or slots well, so I was unable to resolve the issues using this technique. So I opted for taping down the seams on the inside, using the slots as a guide.
**Cut test for slots (see size of glasses for reference)**
## Cutting the design plans
**BRM Laser at WAAG**
This is the same laser I'm used to at work but an older model so some stuff is different. For example, I need to use much higher settings to cut this paper than I would at work (Speed 100/Power 20, compared to 16 or so).
*Cutting: step by step*:<br>
1. Export design to Illustrator 2, and ***untick all the boxes***
2. Or use a .dxf
3. Copy the file to the desktop or the LaserCut program will crash
4. Import the file (not open)
5. On machine: 1) turn power knob to the right, 2) turn power button on, and 3) turn on the water cooler and 4) switch on laser head (just before you start cutting, because: noisy).
6. Calibrate the height of the laser head using wooden block provided
7. Position material, and set origin or anchor (hit esc if machine doesn't respond)
8. Delete double lines Go **to Tools - Unite Lines**
9. On laser software: put in settings (do test first!) I tested for 300 grams paper on speed 100, power 16, 18 and 20 and settled on the latter.
10. Download file: del all to delete old file, download new file to machine.
Do a scale model for testing?
Manual scoring, no dotted lines.
**Problems**<br>
The laser software didn't recognize the colors in my design, so I had to redo my designs before taking them to the laser. I usually like working with the pure RGB colors to specify cut jobs (cut, engrave or ignore) but I didn't manage that today.
I saved a copy with all data in Illustrator, then I deleted the annotations layer (I will mark them in pencil after cutting so I can recognize which is which). Then put all the lines on one layer, and saved another copy for cutting.
**Eliminating double lines in Illustrator - THIS WORKS!**<br>
I got a lot of double lines when cutting tests. Even though the laser software can reduce some. I couldn't resolve it completely. So tried to anticipate it in the Illustrator files. I found this tutorial, and it works! Zero double lines after doing this. Just remember to ungroup the vectors after because the laser software does not like...
So in the end: I cut only the outlines and the fold lines and kept the canvas frame for reference because the measurements gets messed up when taking the design into the laser software. Having only the elements gives a different size than measuring the canvas edge.
