CSE325
Computers and Sculpture
Due tuesday, March 24

For each of these five questions, generate a Maya file that could be built on an RP machine.  Name the file for problem n "HW-lastname-IDNumber-n" and make a clear screen shot of each object, with the same file name. Send the screen shot of the first four (not the Maya file) as attachments in a single email to the TA, with a subject line: "CSE325-HW". (The screen shots should be .jpg, .gif, or .png format.) For #5, have a printed description and screen shot to hand in, as described below.




1. Make some links of a bumpy chain, as in the image above. The links should be free to move, i.e., they should not intersect. Instead of the above short straight chain, make your chain a loop, that (if built) could be worn as a short bracelet.




2. Above  is a scanning elecron microscope image of examples of an interesting type of crystal. Make a Maya file of a single crystal shaped like a typical example.






3. Make a Maya file suggestive of a pollen grain, like one from the above photomicrograph.  It could be as simple as the above purple thing, or bumpier. (Hint: Using Maya's "Selection Constraints" can make this easier, e.g., you can choose all vertices with a given number of neighbors. Note that "Subdivide/Quads" creates vertices of degree four but "Chamfer" creates vertices of degree three.)




4. Make an interwoven pair of smooth surfaces, similar to the above cube/octahedron pair, but your curves might be different. The two parts should not intersect, i.e., they should be free to move slightly if we built it on an RP machine.


5. Design an original geometric sculpture with Maya that you would like to build on a rapid prototyping machine. It can be angular or organic. Ideally, it should be a single boundary mesh with no intersecting faces and no "backfaces" showing. But it is OK if there are several objects combined, understood as their Boolean union. You should understand it well enough that you can reproduce it from scratch. In class, hand in one printed page of text describing what it is and how it is constructed, plus a screen shot image. Have the Maya file available to display in class, as I will choose some to build.

Grading note: The last question is weighted more than the others. You can get extra credit on any of them for something extra cool.