Hyper-Realistic Stone Fields Made With A 3D Printer

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Designer Giuseppe Randazzo dazzled the Internet back in 2009 with Stone Fields, his series of intricately sculpted virtual stone fields. Inspired by the land sculptures of Richard Long, and created long before the democratized 3D printing surge that today brings us everything from 3D printed memes to 3D printed microbial tiling, Randazzo’s original models were resigned to exist solely in the digital realm, and in our imaginations. Now that it’s 2014, however, yesterday’s ‘impossible’ is today’s ‘easy as 3D-printed pie.’

Organized in different patterns ranging from straight gradients to continent-like shapes, Randazzo’s 3D printed stone fields look like meticulously arranged Zen rock gardens. 3D printing marketplace Shapeways printed the rocks based on Randazzo’s original models, and the artist recreated real-life rock-like colors and textures by airbrushing each polyamide pebble with acrylic paint.

Randazzo designed his orignal stone field models with a custom software he coded in C++, which allowed him the ability to sculpt in incredible detail within a variety of adjustable parameters. “Despite the small scale, these prototypes give an idea of the complexity of the gradients of artificial stones,” he says. While he maintains that the original models are far more complex than even advanced 3D printers can represent, the intriguing geometric patterns of his Stone Fields prototypes have us feeling inner peace already.

Take a look at Randazzo’s 3D-printed stone fields and the digital models they were made from in the video and images below:

h/t This Is Colossal

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