Shape To Fabrication photos and videos

With 200 participants from all over Europe (and some from US and Canada), the Shape To Fabrication 4 conference was a big success (some photos here).

Preceded by four days of intense workshops (here are some flicker photos and here are some nice videos featuring the Evolute workshop), London's premier architects, engineers, fabricators and contractors showcased amazing projects done in Rhino, including speakers from Populous, Aedas, Luca Biselli, Simmonds Studio, AKT, Arup, Buro Happold, Zaha Hadid Architects, Yolles, Amanda Levete Architects.

Software manufacturers: 

• Chaos group presented the upcoming V-Ray for Rhino 1.5 (expected to be released Q1 2012), a new version that matches the functionality found at V-Ray 2.0 for 3D Max, including real time rendering. 
• Giulio Piacentino introduced RhinoPython to the community. 
• RhinoTerrain announced two new future modules for Rhino 5: RhinoCity and RhinoRoad. 
• Evolute did a great demo on its Rhino plug-ins for geometry optimization and the new version 1.2. 
• The SMART Form and SMART Move VIZ tools by Buro Happold on real-time analysis. Simulation tools for rapid design optimizations were also a hit. 
• KUKA|prc (parametric robot control), a plug-in for Grasshopper that for the first time enables robot control from within architectural software, was presented by Sigrid & Johannes (Robots in Architecture Association). 
• Francesc Salla from Asuni showed VisualARQ's new version. 
• Symvol for Rhino, a new tool for volume based 3D design and modeling by Uformia, was simply a revolution. 
• David Rutten explained the second solver available from within Galapagos which implements the Simulated Annealing algorithm (presentation here).
• And Daniel Piker made a great presentation about Kangaroo live physics engine with projects by students and commercial users.

HP explained how they see 3D printing in architecture through a very nice video at Span Architects.

At the closing session, the conference organizers announced a new Master program to be held at the South Bank University London.

Keep your eyes open for STF5 in 2012!