Check Out These Hypnotizing Sculptures Created by a 3D Printer
Product designer John Edmark is the artist behind these impressive Blooming Zoetrope Sculptures. These hypnotizing sculptures were created by a 3D printer and their design was based on naturally occurring examples of the Fibonnaci sequence and “golden angles” in nature.
This is what he had to say about his project:
‘These are 3-D printed sculptures designed to animate when spun under a strobe light. The placement of the appendages is determined by the same method nature uses in pinecones and sunflowers. The rotation speed is synchronized to the strobe so that one flash occurs every time the sculpture turns 137.5º—the golden angle. If you count the number of spirals on any of these sculptures you will find that they are always Fibonacci numbers.
137.5 degrees is a very special angle, called the golden angle, based on the golden ratio. When that angle is used by nature as a growth strategy it leads to the formation of spiral patterns,” said Edmark. “If you were to count the number of spirals in these patterns you will find that they are always a Fibonacci number.”
For this video, rather than using a strobe, the camera was set to a very short shutter speed (1/4000 sec) in order to freeze the spinning sculpture.’
The illusion of movement is given by filming the sculpture under a strobe light with a camera set on a very low aperture speed.
“The placement of the appendages on these sculptures is critical to the success of the animation effect. The positions are based on a specific phyllotaxy (i.e. leaf order) used by nature in a number of botanical forms, including pine cones, pineapples, sunflowers, artichokes, palm trees, and many succulents.”
To create each sculpture, each petal must be placed around a central core at an angle of 137.5 degrees from the previous one, starting from the top and working down.
