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Rapid prototyping removes one of the processes manuacturers have to follow to move from idea to finished object. For much of the last two centuries since the Industrial Revolution designers had to give their drawings to engineers to make the tools that produced the end object.

A rapid prototype or manufacture machine is directly controlled by a computer as its laser cutters construct the object layer by layer. The are no moulds, dyes, templates or cutters to make first. It means that changes can be made immediately and cheaply.

A 'Geneva Drive' machine fashioned on a rapid prototyping machine (image: AThompson, under Creative Commons licence)

Until recently designers had to imagine objects as collections of flat and curved forms that can be made on traditional machines. Rapid prototyping/manufacture allows them to use curved surfaces impossible to make on such machines - ones of such complexity only a computer can effectively model them.

Automake

Automake is led by Justin Marshall at University College Falmouth in a project instigated by Paul Atkinson at the University of Huddersfield and supported by Ertu Envers, a computer expert and CAD expert.

It asks how the generative features (the ability to apply and progressively change simple rules) of computer software can be used to invent new objects. You can see this in the way a simple form, a little like the jacks children play with, become complex and aesthetically and technologically intriguing.

Random bowl by Justin Marshall

It offers a way to control forms rarely possible with hand building.

Justin and colleagues have extended the technology by taking a virtual form, which can be abstract or figurative, and 'filling' them with simple forms that 'jostle' until complex structures emerge.

More about Automake at www.justinmarshall.co.uk or www.automake.co.uk

FutureFactories

FutureFactories is the invention of Lionel Theodore Dean, a designer who for the last few years has been working alongside colleagues at the University of Huddersfield (see left).

Lionel's proposition is simple, that we can change from mass production to individual production using the same high level making process.

His work shows the idea in action. Forms morph from one to another according to small changes in computer design rules. The possibilities are endless and at any point the design can be sent to a 3D printer for manufacture.

Tuber, sis nylon 2004 by Lionel Theodore Dean

More about FutureFactories at www.futurefactories.com