I recently saw some fantastic examples of 3D printing on fabric for the fashion industry, and reached out to see if my artwork, Apollonian Mandelbrot, could be realized in this way. I’m thrilled with the result.
Apollonian Mandelbrot was an artwork I created in 2010 as one of my optimal circle-packing experiments, with code written in Processing. In early 2023, I revisited circle packing algorithms with p5js, adding a shiny bubbly 3D look instead of flat colours. Collectors of these digital artworks at the time expressed a desire to be able to touch it – to experience its bubbly texture physically.
Process:
p5js does the circle-packing work, the data is then ported to ThreeJS to render the circles as compressed hemispheres and to export as gltf, then UV unwrapping is done in Blender. At that point it’s ready to hand over for printing in 3D.
Thanks to ABI3D !
Written by
David Oxley
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