Crystallon Workshop - Online

July 23-24 & 27-28, 2020 

10 AM to 2 PM CEST

Online - Hosted by McNeel Europe

Aaron Porterfield, industrial designer and founder of F=F, will lead a four-day Crystallon workshop.

This intensive course will focus on understanding and generating functional lattice structures using Rhino, Grasshopper, and the Crystallon plugin. The course will cover the fundamental understanding of lattice structures and their real-world applications, generating the necessary geometry using Crystallon, simulation, and optimization using FEA and evolutionary tools, and meshing for 3D printing. The class outcome will be the understanding of the tools, plus how to incorporate them into your workflow and create functional models that are ready for production.


Day 1: Fundamentals

• What is a lattice structure? A brief history of crystallography.
• Why use a lattice structure? Applications and industry case studies.
• Understanding the different types of lattice structures and their applications.
• Introduction to the Crystallon tools.

Day 2: The Crystallon toolset

• Voxelization - Generating uniform and conformal cells using BReps, meshes, surfaces, or curves.
• Populate - Populating cells with a lattice and using data to morph between structures.
• Clean up - Trimming a lattice and removing unnecessary beams.
• Modify - Creating a skin and connecting the lattice to the skin.
• Thicken - Assigning thickness to beams and shells.

Day 3: Simulation, optimization and meshing

• What is FEA and why should we learn?
• Setting up a simple simulation.
• Optimization with evolutionary solvers.
• Generating a 3D printable mesh.

Day 4: Application demos

• Structural light-weighting – for mechanical parts.
• Structural shells – 3D printed furniture.

Course requirements: Basic knowledge using Rhino and Grasshopper.

Online course fee: EUR 247.50 (+VAT); full-time students and university teachers will get a 50% discount (proof of status required). Please note, your seat is only confirmed once your payment has cleared.

Max. number of participants: 25. If there is no quorum, the course will be canceled July 16.

Course language: English

Educational seats are limited. 

Sign up now by contacting McNeel Europe here!