Laser Origami

ACRYLIC BENDING

One of the more interesting applications is the selective heating of acrylic sheets and bending along the line of weakness to create a natural fold, identical to paper or cardboard that is scored with a blade.  There is only  a limited time (seconds rather than minutes) before the fold loses its heat and plasticity and the acrylic becomes brittle.  I see some really interesting and unique artistic applications opening up.  The term laser origami has been used recently to describe both a form of rapid prototyping:

and more high end scientific micro fabrication:

My attempts included this acrylic box made from a single flat piece of 2mm acrylic.  I made multiple passes with a purposely out of focus beam to broaden the application of heat to the fold:

a scored and bent  edge of red 3mm acrylic:

Scored and bent edge of 2mm acrylic. The markings on the surface are made with an out of focus beam which creates a nice broad scalloped effect:

Playing with Pine

7mm PINE

Sometimes the void...

...is just as interesting as the object...

7mm pine because of its density can be cut in one pass, leaving a non charcoally burnished edge.  The cutter struggles with denser media such as ply and MDF of the same width.

Experiments with Bamboo

BAMBOO

Machine made up and down passes whilst the bamboo was moved randomly by hand.  The machine has a side opening so I could move the bamboo from outside the machine.  It felt a bit like glass blowing!!!

Detail

Cutting was very smokey and left a sticky resin on the bamboo that had to be sanded off. Not sure if it's good for the lens.  This wasn't done with the rotary cutter, rather manually, column by column.

Grid pattern of squares using and underpowered vector cut (as opposed to etching), the random pattern next to it is the same grid pattern but the bamboo was moved randomly around the cutting table as the job was being executed hence the rectilinear nature behind the randomness.