Fractal Crystal Sculpture
"Fractal Crystal" is a physical sculpture printed using a zCorp 3D printer. Mathematically, it is constructed by starting with a first generation cube and placing a half-scale cube on the center of each face. The second-generation cubes have the same orientation as the first-generation cube. Third-generation cubes again scaled by half are placed on each unoccupied face of a second-generation cube. This process is continued ad infinitum to form a "fractal crystal". The growth of the crystal occurs more rapidly along normals to the faces of the starting cube, leading to an overall envelope that is an octahedron, the Archimedean dual of the cube. The sculpture includes the first 11 generations of cubes, with colors graduated from red for the largest cube to blue for the smallest cubes. "Fractal Crystal" is a collaborative work between Robert Fathauer and Nicholas Duchnowski and Hank Kaczmarski, both of the Beckman Inistitute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The object was designed by Robert, the computer description was written by Nicholas, and the writing of the physical object was carried out by Hank.Click here for additional views.
