Voxel Snake
My kids have a bendy toy that was begging me to recreate it using Madeup. The toy is kind of like a voxelated snake: I made a single block with this short program: This solidifies to a nice-looking block with alternating notches: After printing 12 of these, making a trip to a hobby store for elastic cord, and […]
Hollowed Box
In my recent status report for Madeup, I shared a picture of an H-shaped box that I designed in Madeup and printed. I actually had to print two, because when I showed my friend Heather, she wanted one too. Maybe you want one? But what if your name doesn’t start with H? Well, I offer […]
Madeup Status Report #5
The summer is drawing to a close. Madeup has come a long way since May! Some big features remain (like support for holes, a persistent server for generating models, and some support for splines), but the core path-walking mechanic is stable and enough hands have touched it and not founding glaring errors that I think […]
Madeup Status Report #4
Fixlog My goal for reporting my updates in two-week chunks was blown to smithereens by a week-long summer camp for middle schoolers that I put on last week. So, let me summarize what’s been going on these past few weeks topically instead of chronologically. Storage The part of releasing Madeup to the public that has scared me the […]
Madeup Status Report #3
These past two weeks were host to a considerable number of bug fixes and model generation tweaks. Dowels can be rounded and their thickness can be changed. Better geometry is generated for surfaces of revolution and extrusion. And the user interface feels much more coherent and better remembers users’ settings. Read below for a daily breakdown […]
Madeup Status Report #2
Madeup saw a major behind-the-scenes shift this fortnight: I switched to a handwritten lexer and parser! I can honestly say my life has improved significantly since the change. Parser generators are great, but I’m not sure decoupling a grammar specification from the code that recognizes utterances conforming to that grammar is really what we want to […]
Madeup Status Report #1
The reason I became a teacher is so that I can do 1000 things in a day. I design homeworks; write grading unit tests; plan and deliver lectures; read up on relevant news and research; review academic papers; read books on things I don’t know enough about; compose haiku; serve on various university committees; oversee independent studies; meet […]
Madeup Briefing
Introduction Madeup is a language for making things up–literally. It is a platform for thinking about shapes in an imperative, algorithmic way. Its speakers trace out an object’s skeleton or cross section and then use a Madeup command to generate a solid 3D model that can be printed on a 3D printer. Here we briefly describe the language […]
Madeup Circulating
Last week I started a Kickstarter campaign to support summer development for Madeup. The support I’ve found amongst my former students and coworkers has been very encouraging. I’m not surprised, however, because they are good people. What’s been more surprising is the support of random strangers. A Google search of madeup kickstarter reveals the following: […]
The Revolution Was Madeup
Madeup now supports surfaces of revolution. Trace out a radially-symmetric cross-section of an object, then spin it around the object’s central axis some number of degrees using the revolve command to form a solid. The variable nsides determines how many intermediate stops are made as the cross-section is spun. I offer a few examples of the revolve […]