Final report to TASC - December 1998

The CALM (Creating Art with Layer Manufacture) project was set up by the Higher Education Funding Councils as part of an initiative to promote the use of IT within the Art and Design community in UK higher education. The purpose of the project was provide an opportunity for artists and designers to experiment with the new rapid prototyping techniques developed by engineers. Rapid prototyping provides a way to produce objects of elaborate topology and great physical complexity, but so far its use has been limited almost entirely to engineering. Lack of awareness of the technology in the general community, combined with high equipment costs and demanding software, has meant that its potential for art has barely begun to be investigated. Since 3-dimensional computer modelling is integral to rapid prototyping, it was hoped that the CALM project would also stimulate a more general interest in 3D modelling.

To set the project in context, it should be noted that very few artists had used rapid prototyping at all; perhaps a dozen in all, worldwide. So the CALM project was breaking very new ground in trying to inspire artists to use this technology.

The CALM project
Gallery of artwork produced
Technology of rapid prototyping
3D modelling
Acknowledgements
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