The moon frame was one of my first 3D-prints. As you’ve probably guessed, it captures the phases of the moon. This was surprisingly difficult. The average synodic month is 29.53058 days, a number which doesn’t exactly lend itself to this grid format.
Making a lot of astronomical assumptions (and maybe a few aesthetic ones) I decided that 2 of the 30 nights, or grid cells in this case, would be moonless. Given that, I extrapolated the percent of the moon that would be visible each night. I then compressed a model of the lunar surface down to a few centimeters, along the way exaggerating the topo - a process requiring no small amount of computing power!
Due to the time-intensiveness of moon slicing in CAD, I decided to make a serious lie, for which I apologize: the second half of the crescent moons are simply an inversion of the first half, meaning that they’re mirror images of the actual surface of the moon.
Astronomical fudge factors aside, the small Z-axis of my 3D-printer forced me to subdivide the frame into eight separate, interlocking pieces, which were superglued together. Insane readers will note that the bottom 1/5 of the Apollo 15 photograph has been faked using an image induction ML program.
Designed for Paul’s 30th birthday
This frame’s profile, in a bit of cheeky self-reference, is the same as that of cornice in the photograph. Satisfying the functional requirements for this project was hard. The frame is over a third of a meter wide - much larger than the print envelope of my 3D printer - necessitating a series of interlocking units. The units, individually and collectively, had to be strong, as the glass alone weighed over a kilo. I gave the final 3D print a coat of hammered bronze spray paint, in a color matching the sepia of the photograph (which I believe is an original from a fin de siècle French expedition to Egypt).
The ornamental motif consists of a set of tiled ziggurats. The frame is cantilevered out over the base, making it appear - from most angles - to be floating.