Picasso Adapting Art to Viewers: Cabinet Design, Blog #3

Art is often made to appeal to a specific set of viewers.  This is the third blog in a series exploring the idea of using AI to recognize a viewer and adapt art to their age or interest.  The intent is to encourage early art appreciation while being attractive to all household members.

In this post the cabinet for the project is started and the design process described.  Traditionally drawn design and fabrication with hand tools is compared to Computer Aided Design (CAD) and automated fabrication.

Design Inspiration

The design is meant to be retro but futuristic like something out of mid-20th Century science fiction.  The primary inspiration is old table top radios and early televisions with their rounded screens.

Old School Design and Fabrication

When I took Engineering Design Graphics in college CAD was yet to be invented and we drew on a board with a T-square, triangles, protractors, compass, dividers, and of course French curves (what do they call French curves in France?).  And that is how the cabinet face was designed to full scale mostly using a straight edge and 45 year old K&E curves.  Screen and stand dimensions were taken from a Raspberry Pi display and a sketch made that looked OK to my eye. I stopped erasing and drawing when it looked about right.

I no longer have a wood shop, so the drawing was transferred to plywood and the face cut out with a saber saw.  A preferred method would be to cut a template out of wood stock and then use that with a router and roller bit.  Or, these days a CNC router.  Personally I don't like the aesthetics from the burnt edges of laser cutting.  In any event, my hand cut face is a bit rough but serviceable for a prototype.  Danish oil was used for the finish (what do they call Danish oil in Denmark?).

New Fangled Design and Fabrication

That was before a new shiny toy arrived.  The AnyCubic I3 Mega 3D printer arrived mid-week and has totally dominated my time since.  But after seeing projects by Douglas Wong on Element 14 it was a foregone conclusion I would get one.  Getting the bed level took some time but the first print came out great.  My current workflow uses Fusion 360 for design and Cura 4.0 for slicing.  Warning:  steep learning curve ahead :-).  Fortunately I have some background with CAD if not 3D printing.

The plywood face is very plain so a model name / logo was designed in Photoshop by taking 3D script and editing it so that it flowed nicely and was all connected.  Photoshop is probably not optimal but I have it and am familiar with it.  The design was saved as JPEG file.

The JPEG file was then converted to SVG using an online tool at online-convert.com.  It was then inserted into Fusion 360 and extruded:

The first print was a little small, so another was printed about 50% larger.  The default settings in Cura for the printer seem fine and so far no failed prints.  The next thing was to design a knob.  A quick look at old radio knobs brought up in an Internet search gave some ideas but in the end I just started sketching something in Fusion 360 and this is what I came up with:

The first print was fine so another was printed.

The Mockup

For the mock-up, mounting putty was used so nothing is permanent yet.  Funny, but I thought the face looked better upside down and backwards so that is what is shown in the following artfully staged display on the shelf in the entry way of our house.  Note the skillfully placed plastic plant which balances things out under some artwork my wife already had up.

And here are closeups of the front and back.

The irregularity in the hand fabrication of the plywood is evident in the closeups and the placement and  design of the logo and knobs need tweaking but it illustrates the idea.  Ultimately a bezel around the display would be nice so that the rough edges could be hidden and a rounded bezel exchanged for a rectangular one if desired.  The camera still needs to be installed and a mount that allows camera adjustment would be nice.  Potentially a speaker grill will also be added.

By the way, the knobs at least for now have no function - they are just for looks.  The current plan is to communicate over Bluetooth but that could change.  Speaking of change, adding these 3D niceties while not in the original plan add to the project a lot in my opinion (and it is fun!).  However, care must be taken to stay on track and not stray too far down the 3D printing rabbit hole at least for now.  There is still a lot of other work to be done....

Thoughts on the Design Process

I still prefer hand sketching to get ideas down but can see benefits to getting things into a model early in the process.  For example, once rough sketched by hand it would have taken little time to make it dimensionally correct in Fusion 360 and a more accurate template created and printed.  It would even be possible to extrude and print a template for use with a router and roller bit - or send it out for fabrication.

Next Steps

The facial image recognition needs work and the Raspberry Pi with camera connected and fitted to the cabinet.  Lots of tutorials on 3D printing and Fusion 360 :-)

Other Posts in this Series

PiCasso Adapting Art to Viewers: Introduction, Blog #1

Picasso Design Challenge:   Adapting Art to Viewers Blog #2