Discussion forum
CAD discussion |
Please abide by the rules of this forum.
How to post questions: register or login, go to the specific forum and click the NEW TOPIC button.
Candy Mechanics: What's more fun than getting your face made out of ch |
Post Reply |
Author | |
AliveInTheLab
RSS robots Joined: 20.Nov.2009 Status: Offline Points: 425 |
Topic: Candy Mechanics: What's more fun than getting your face made out of ch Posted: 09.May.2017 at 04:00 |
In December 2016, I shared a story about two Autodesk employees who CNC'd (computer numerically controlled) personalized creations using chocolate. Thanks to Autodesk Forge, Philippe and Lucas are not alone. Actually, lots of people make edible 3D printables or CNC-ables, but this blog post covers a company that is doing so with the help of Forge. Recall that Forge is a:
At Autodesk, we use Forge for our own development, but Forge is intended for our customers and 3rd party developers to be able to extend our web services. Candy Mechanics is one of those developers. Here is their story. “Know who you are and tell the world.” That's the prompt Sam Part had to answer as part of a design project at London's Kingston University. He pondered what that meant for him and came to a reasonable answer: He was a likeable guy, but in his notes, Part wrote, "I'm a lickable guy." That error, it turned out, was sweet inspiration. To complete his project, Part created something he called a Lolpop, a highly detailed 3D rendering of a person's face in chocolate lollipop form. That design later received a nomination for a D&AD New Blood Award, a renowned competition that recognizes the work of young creatives. Six months after that first Lolpop, Part and Ben Redford co-founded Candy Mechanics, but the work of getting Lolpops out into the world had only begun. Taking a classroom project and scaling it to meet real-world demand — that’s where ingenuity and some unique tools came into play.
Candy Mechanics selected a CNC mill as the best method for mass production as it can produce a similar level of detail to a 3D print in a fraction of the time and is highly reliable. For them, sacrificing a small amount of detail created a scalable process to bring completely customized products to the world. While sorting out the best machine for their manufacturing needs, they had to come up with a computerized system to convert customers' faces and designs into unique pieces. They started experimenting with a variety of off-the-shelf software, but the way that they were combining them made their process unique. As a result, they added custom software, leveraging the Forge API platform and Autodesk ReMake, which allows customers to upload short videos from their smartphones to the Candy Carve. The machine's software creates a carve-worthy 3D image of the customer's face from the video. This made Lolpops the world's first customizable consumable product created directly from a smartphone. The bespoke nature of its products helps Candy Mechanics stand above other tech-forward candy creations, like screen-printed chocolate candies or stamped truffles. Since launching a small and highly successful trial for Lolpops in the popular British department store, Selfridges, in 2015, Candy Mechanics has seen significant growth. The company introduced a second product, Candy Cards, last year. Customers use an online app to create one-of-a-kind designs. The Candy Carve machine etches the design, and the unique and delicious piece of art is shipped to a lucky recipient. Candy Mechanics is also adding dark chocolate options to its lineup, and if customers want a little more pizzazz in their Lolpops, their 3D faces can be dusted in sparkly, edible gold. Thanks to Forge Marketing Manager, Nelle Sacknoff for the text about Candy Mechanics. Thanks to Digital Marketing Manager, Caroline Ash, from Candy Mechanics for the images. "We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them." When it comes to Candy Mechanics, Steve Jobs would not have been kidding. Chocolate is alive in the lab. Go to the original post... |
|
It's Alive in ihe Lab - Autodesk Labs blog by Scott Sheppard
|
|
Post Reply | |
Tweet
|
Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |
This page was generated in 0,836 seconds.