Jigsaw puzzles for the 21st century! Each generative puzzle is a one of a kind creation with unique art and pieces. Our goal was to marry the artistry of traditional, hand-crafted jigsaw puzzles with the possibilities of new technologies. Custom software simulates crystal growth to create an organic interlocking pattern. Our laser cutter translates this into a unique set of plywood pieces. We collaborated with contemporary digital artists who created engaging artwork for the puzzles.

The puzzles are made entirely in our studio in Somerville, MA. We print the artwork on archival paper and laser cut the puzzles from birch plywood. They come in two sizes, a round 7.5″ puzzle with 85 pieces and a rectangular 18×12″ puzzle with 410 pieces. Every puzzle is unique.

We’ve created a project page with tons of information about our inspiration, process and methods for creating these jigsaw puzzles. We invite you to explore it here: Generative Jigsaws Project Page.  The project page discusses

• Why Jigsaw Puzzles?
• Inspiration for the Shape of the Pieces
• How we generate the pieces
• Whimsy Guide
• About the Artwork of Jonathan Mccabe
• Process – the making of
• What’s Next?

We designed a puzzle cut generation system based on a simulation of dendritic solidification, a crystal growth process similar to the formation of snowflakes that occurs in supercooled solutions of certain metallic alloys. This system generates a unique cutting pattern, and by varying the parameter space, can produce a variety of cut styles. You can read about how our simulation works here.

The puzzle images are one of a kind, original artworks by invited generative artists. Our first series is created by Jonathan McCabe, an artist based in Melbourne who works with reaction diffusion patterns. His pieces are created by layering several reaction diffusion simulations at multiple scales. Additionally, he imparts flow and movement by combining this with a compressible fluid simulation. The result is an explosion of color and pattern reminiscent of flowers, animal patterns, and watercolor. Jonathan talks about his process on our project page here.

The first series of puzzles comes in two varieties: a 7.5″ round puzzle with approximately 85 pieces and a 18″x12″ puzzle with approximately 400 pieces. The smaller puzzles come with a selection of whimsies themed around “Microscopic Life”. Each puzzle is a veritable petri dish teeming with special pieces resembling algae, diatoms, radiolarians and other minuscule creatures. The large puzzles come with a broad range of whimsies spanning all of our interests here at Nervous System.

Our puzzles are manufactured in our studio in Somerville. We print the art on archival quality paper, mount them on birch plywood, and laser cut them. Each puzzle comes in a handcrafted wood box made in Vermont.

Our Spring/Summer collection, Ammonite is now available! Ammonite takes inspiration from the interlocking suture patterns found on the fossilized shells of ammonites, an extinct relative of the octopus that roamed the ancient oceans. Sutures are complex, fractal boundaries that separate the chambers of an ammonite’s shell.

Though their true origin is unknown, we used a simulation of dendritic solidification to make suture-like patterns. Branching structures emerge during supercooled crystal growth due to the interplay of phase change and temperature as liquid becomes solid. (video of our simulation shown below)

The collection features fluid, branching forms where positive and negative shapes interpenetrate to form a complex boundary. Many of the designs are built from a series of topographic contours, each representing a snapshot of the growth process. Other pieces showcase the bold organic silhouettes of the final forms. The delicate stainless steel designs are mounted on high contrast black or white acrylic. The acrylic pieces are laser cut and thermo-formed in our studio and the stainless steel is photochemically etched in Minnesota.

Click here to view the collection in our online store. Photos of all 16 pieces are included below.

We’re working on a number of different lamps designs that we hope to introduce at ICFF this May.  This lamp will be comparatively inexpensive to the ones we sell now because of it’s smaller size.  It uses a powerful single LED light fixture.  Each lamp will be unique both in overall form and in pattern.  The variable sizes of the lamps will allow for variable pricing.

Come join us in the Nervous System studio for a relaxed evening of learning and playing Go – the ancient board game. While playing, we can chat about projects, simulation, 3d printing, or whatever. No experience required. Inspired by Kitchen Table Coders. Feel free to bring any drinks or snacks.

March 21st 2012
7pm-10pm
Free

561 Windsor St
Ste A206
Somerville, MA

(same building as Taza Chocolate)

In the future, we would like to run more events around creative uses of new technology, bringing together local programmers, artists, makers, and engineers. If you’re interested, come by our studio, play go, and let us know what you think.

For a while now, we’ve been wanting to switch our online apps from Java applets to HTML5. Applets are simply an outdated technology with a much clunkier, inelegant user experience. Finally, in the last two weeks, we’ve had the time to dig in and start porting our apps. Not only is the technology superior for developing HTML5 apps, but we’ve also learned a lot since we first released customization apps in 2007.  We decided to tackle the most complex one first, the Cell Cycle app. In this post, I’ll go over some of the tech we used and some of the hurdles we encountered.

The Tech

The first thing we had to decide was how we wanted to go about translating our app from Processing, our development environment of choice, to Javascript. I considered rewriting the entire thing from scratch as a kind of JS learning exercise, but decided it was not worth while. The next obvious choice was to use the amazing ProcessingJS, which allows you to run pure Processing code directly in the browser. However, the 3D capabilities of PJS are somewhat limited, so I spent some time looking at other frameworks people have developed around WebGL, such as Mr. Doob’s Three.js. Despite there being some great frameworks out there, I decided that the options were too heavy handed and required too much specialization. The great thing about Processing is how subtle it is. It does exactly what you think it should without extraneous syntax getting in the way.

ProcessingJS

Ultimately, we went with a hybrid of the first two options. We used PJS so that we could reuse the core logic of the original Processing app, but we used pure JS and webGL for drawing. One of the amazing things about PJS is you can mix Processing code and Javascript directly. This allowed us to write JS drawing functions and simply replace the drawing parts of our Processing code. There is an additional benefit/detriment to this ability of PJS. You cannot only call JS functions from Processing, but can combine the object models of Java and Javascript. You have the clean and compact class definitions of Java. But you have the mutability of Javascript that avoids the “over-objectification” that is common in Java. I find this a really refreshing way of coding; however, to the casual user the mixing of Java and Javascript may end up looking like gibberish.

No Libraries

One of the unfortunate aspects of PJS is cannot directly leverage the great community that has grown up around Processing and developed so many powerful libraries to extend Processing. There is no easy way to use Processing libraries in PJS, and in many cases, it is non-trivial to port libraries to PJS. So the first thing we had to do was remove any library dependencies from our code, which included controlP5 and PeasyCam. We replaced these with our own code. This wasn’t so bad, since the app needed a UI overhaul anyway.

the old Java version

Features

The original Java version of the Cell Cycle app had a number of problems. The interface was cluttered; it was buggy; you couldn’t save and share models; you couldn’t subdivide cells on the inside of the bracelet; etc. We took this rewriting as an opportunity to fix and add a bunch of features. Originally, there were three different “view modes”: 3D, smooth, and 2D. We combined all of these into one. The model is always smooth (more on this next) and with the extra screen real estate of the browser, we can show 2D and 3D views simultaneously.

The new version autosizes! Previously there was a “radius”, which corresponds a parameter in the mesh generation but has no relation to the user. It doesn’t correspond to the inner radius or outer radius of the final piece. We updated this version so the user specifies the interior diameter of the final piece. The code then iteratively resizes the piece until the interior dimension is approximately correct. This way a user can specify a size and no matter what they do to the model afterwards, it remains the same size.

Permalinking! It is practically necessary to have permalinks to user generated content on the web these days. If you can’t tweet something or post it to facebook, it might as well not exist. Not only can you link to a model now, but you (or anyone) can continue editing. Instead of saving the mesh that gets 3D printed to our server, we save an abstract representation of the current model state. The actual 3D mesh is reconstructed upon loading. Not only does this allow geometry to be smartly reloaded for editing, but also makes the models much lighter. This saves space, bandwidth, and load times.

Optimization

The biggest amount of development we had to do was optimization. Things have to run fast in the browser. The majority of processing power goes towards generating the mesh and passing that info to the GPU with webGL. Displaying large, static models using openGL is easy. You load up a model into a VBO once, and that’s it. You can display millions of triangles at really fast frame rates. All the work is done in a preprocess, so you don’t have to worry optimization. However, when you have a large, dynamic mesh that is constantly changing, optimization becomes important.

One thing we decided is it couldn’t be completely smooth all the time. The meshes are smoothed through Catmull-Clark subdivision. The models that we send to the printer have two subdivision steps preformed on them. This is simply too much computation to be done in real time.  Instead, while the model is moving we only perform one subdivision. When the model settles and stops, which happens pretty rapidly, we perform a second subdivision and store that in a VBO.  Until it moves again, we do not update the VBO.

But this in and of itself was insufficient using the naive drawing methods that we had previously. The meshes are represented using a Half edge data structure. This stores connectivity information of our mesh faces in a compact way. The simple approach to drawing the mesh is to loop through all the vertices and faces of a mesh, dump that info into arrays that gets passed to the GPU. The problem is that regular JS objects and arrays are not particularly performance oriented. Simply looping a large array of objects and performing basic operations is a significant CPU drain. The key to getting around this is doing as much as possible in fixed-type arrays that were introduced into Javascript specifically for webGL. These include Uint16Array, Float32Array, etc. In my experience, these arrays are far more efficient than generic arrays. Instead of subdividing and creating a new Half edge mesh, the subdivision data goes directly into fixed-type vertex and index arrays that can be passed to webGL. Additionally, other computations, such as surface normals and volume are performed directly out of these buffer arrays. This was ultimately key to  getting interactive framerates.

We’re excited to announce the release of a new Cell Cycle app! It’s a major upgrade from the previous Java applet and runs directly inside modern browsers.  We’ve added a ton of new features including the ability to save, share and load designs.  We’ve also added a 1-layer design option and a choice of four 3d-printed materials: white nylon, black nylon, red nylon and sterling silver.  We think using the app is pretty self explanatory, but if you have any questions please consult the help section.

We’ll do a blog post next week about some of the technical issues behind the development of the app, but in the meantime…enjoy! You can access the app at http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/cellCycle .  You’ll need a webGL enabled browser.  We recommend Google Chrome.

If you are interested in learning more about our Cell Cycle concept and seeing pieces we’ve design with the app, please check out the Cell Cycle line page.

My version of Watz’s complaint is that people are now able (through Grasshopper or Processing libraries) to use algorithms they don’t understand. When this happens, algorithms control you rather than being a building block in your own creative process. Part of the draw of computational design is you aren’t limited by the tools made available by others. Anything is possible. However, this comes with the caveat that in order for anything to be possible, you need to put in the effort to understand algorithms to the level that you can use them innovatively.

A lot of these algorithms which have become cliche are extremely deep and powerful ideas. In his post Watz says

Yes, heavy use of standard algorithms is bad for you. That is, it is if you wish to consider yourself a computational creative capable of coming up with interesting work. If you’re a computer scientist or an engineer standard algorithms are your bread and butter, and you should go right ahead and use them.

I would say a computational creative should approach standard algorithms in the same manner as computer scientists or engineers. For instance, Voronoi/Delaunay triangulation is probably the most powerful tool in computational geometry. It is at the heart of a ton of really important algorithms. To me, it’s massive potential in science and engineering indicates that there are also infinite creative ways to extend and use this tool. That doesn’t mean you should generate a bunch of random points, Voronoi that shit, and call it your design. It means you should study these geometric objects, understand their properties, and use that to accomplish things you wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

Glyptodons are the extinct ancestors of modern day armadillos.  These giant mammals roamed the Americas from 2.5 million years ago until just as recently as 10,000 years ago before dying out during the megafaunal extinction.  They were about the size of a Volkswagon Beetle and weighed as much too, due to their massive domed shell.  The shell was constructed of hundreds of hexagonal plates formed of keratin called scutes.  Each scute is about an inch thick and they interlock at their edges to made a huge rigid shell.  Grooves in the scutes served as channels for blood vessels that nourished the Glyptodon’s skin.  And holes in the scutes formed attachment points for hair follicles that served as sensors (important since they couldn’t see around their shell).

The type of tiling pattern seen in this shell remind me strongly of a tangent plane approach to paneling a surface of positive curvature.

This fossil of a smaller glytodon called Propalaehoplophorus minor better shows the rosette pattern characteristic of glyptodon armor.  Propalaehoplophorus lived during the Miocene era.

I photographed these tremendous fossils in the Wing of Mammals and Their Extinct Relatives at the American Museum of Natural History.

A close up view of the fossil scutes.

Every time we do a show, it is an opportunity to make something crazy and big. For this year’s New York International Gift Fair, we made the Barnacle display wall, an array of cellular extrusions each housing a selection of designs lit by LED strips.

We wanted to address some of the problems we’ve encountered in past trade show displays. As with all trade show projects, we were working with very limited time and budget. Last year, we made crystalline, geode pedestals, which were awesome, but had a few issues. First, they were very difficult to assemble. They also lacked a certain amount of coherence. The pieces they were displaying did not have a place, and were placed on top arbitrarily. We spent a lot of time on the design of booth (most of which was not used) and had not done much thinking about construction and the pieces we would display.

This year we wanted to minimize design time, and make sure we had a simple construction method that would display the pieces well. We quickly decided to use a modified version of our Written Images Barnacle sketch, which is in turn an extension of our Radiolaria project. This allowed us to start designing fast.

our first physical sketch…a bit lacking in finesse but serviceable

We went with the architecture student’s tried and true construction materials: laser cutter + chip board. We wanted to it to be fast, inexpensive, and easy to transport. Each barnacle is unrolled to a flat, scored sheet that can be folded into its 3D form. It is attached to a flat back plate, which fixes the barnacle’s shape and allows it to be mounted on the wall. Our first prototype used binder clips to attach the pieces. These were too large and difficult to attach to the intricate design. Instead, we switched to brass, round head fasteners, which are like the folded prongs you see on manila envelopes. They were easy to use, cheap, and had a great aesthetic.

a view of our processing sketch

The sketch was modified to generate laser cut files that would fit into our 18″x24″ laser cutter. The barnacles were also sliced at angles to create a more dramatic 3D presence and allow light into the barnacles. In the Written Images project, barnacle height was determined by barnacle area. Here, we added a tool to control the heights interactively, with a simple click and drop off radius sort of system.

test chunk of the final design

The pieces were displayed on clear acrylic inserts that press-fit into the barnacles. This made it seem as if each piece was floating inside the barnacle. It also made sure each piece had a set place, so that if someone took one down to look at it, it went back to the right place.

At the last minute, we decided to light each barnacle with an LED strip. We got 16.5′ of flexible, cuttable LEDs from Amazon for around $12, and soldered wires onto 40, 2″-4″ pieces. The strips were connected together in series on site with crimp connectors. This looked awesome in our dark studio, where the jewelry cast dramatic shadows, and the barnacles let off a mysterious glow. In the harsh light of the Javitz center, the effect was somewhat lost.

The barnacles are mounted on homasote sheets, which allows us to hide all the wiring and assemble the entire wall with only thumbtacks and brass fasteners.

mounting the barnacles at the Javits center using our jig

We shipped everything flat and assembled it on site. We used a jig to make sure everything was level and properly positioned. It took one day from around 12pm-10pm with 4 people. This included unpacking, painting, wiring, assembling, and mounting. I was amazed and relieved when the LED all worked on the first try. It was definitely our most effective and satisfying display to date.

The total project time was roughly 2 days for design and prototyping, 1 day for fabrication, and 1 day for assembly.

Don’t worry! There’s still time to pick up one of our Small Seed Lamps, a Sterling Silver Bamboo Cuff, or anything else from our shop for your favorite friends and relatives.

To ensure delivery by Christmas, please get your orders in on or before the dates below and select the mentioned shipment speed on checkout.

Dec 14th – International orders shipping by Express Mail
Dec 15th – Canadian orders shipping by Express Mail
Dec 19th – USA orders shipping by Priority Mail
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