A long time ago (2001), I experimented with creating mirror boxes -- 3D shapes where every face had a mirror surface on the inside. Thus, you could peer in and see an infinitely reflected image on the inside.
With the laser cutter, I could much more easily try more unusual shapes. Here's what I created with some quick experimentation:
This is a mirrored tetrahedron with laser-etched designs on the sides and light shining through:
This one is another tetrahedron that lets three people look in, and everyone sees each others' eyeballs copied.
The tetrahedron shape does not tessellate 3-space, so the reflections end up being very fragmented. I wanted to find a shape (other than the boring cube, triangular prism, and hexagonal prism) that would perfectly tessellate 3-space so that its reflections would all be completely consistent. It turns out that one exists -- it's called the rhombic dodecahedron. (wikipedial details)
Here's the inside, lit by a camera flash.
And lit by EL wire. Unfortunately, the camera's limited depth of field doesn't let me easily capture distant objects.
So far what I've done is really simple. I want to play around with some more interesting artistic possibilities.
5 comments:
Do you have to cut acrylic mirrors with the backside facing up towards the laser?
No, you can cut either side. The laser is in the mid-infrared (1500nm or something like that) so it isn't a mirror to the laser.
If you're engraving the mirror, it generally looks better to engrave the back. If you engrave the front, you get a double image because you see the engraving and the engraving's reflection.
Cool pictures of your tetrahedron tessellator.
---Matt H.
Beautiful work!
Nice depth acheived in reflections.
If you need help with any laser cutting, contact us.
Check out our wesite:
http://www.lasercuttingshapes.com/
We love to work with new designers.
Cheers
AMAZING :) take a look what i do > http://www.gravideja.lt/graviravimas/graviravimo-lazeriu-galerija/lazerinis-graviravimas/
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