Category Archives: Design

Design

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Almond Flour

Favorite recipes-adjusted for health

We bake exclusively with ground almond flour-no gluten and low carbohydrates. I love chocolate chip cookies, but couldn’t find a good almond flour recipe. I put together a couple of different recipes, and came up with this one. It’s pretty good, if I say so myself.

  • 2 cup almond flour
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 cup agave syrup
  • 1/4 cup grape seed oil
  • 2/3 cup dark chocolate pieces
  • 2/3 cup chopped nuts
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
Mix all ingredients together
Spoon onto an oiled baking pan
Cook at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes, until brown around the edges and a toothpick comes out clean.
Makes about 16 cookies
Design, Garden/Furniture

Table of Scraps

Making use of left-overs
 
When I finished building the truss chair and bench (see previous postings below) I had a small stack of left-over pieces. I try to minimize waste, but there’s always some pieces that are too short to use. In this case I had redwood 2×6’s of varying lengths from 11″ to 23″. They were stacked up on my work bench and getting in the way, but I can’t stand to throw anything out.

Lisa needed a table for 2 flats of little succulents (flats are about 17″ square). The table would stand on an existing low plant shelf and support the flats above the plants. It occurred to me that I could use the wood scraps to build the table.

I cut the 2×6’s into 4 pieces lengthwise. This gave me four 1-1/2″ x 1-1/4″ pieces from each scrap. This worked well, because tables have four legs, and pieces are needed in multiples of 2 or 4.

The table is higher and wider than my longest scrap, so I spliced shorter pieces together. The sixth photo shows a splice where the supports and diagonal braces come together. By overlapping pieces where they connect, nothing has to fit precisely. I didn’t cut the length of any of the pieces, I just let the ends project out.

I used up most of my 2×6 scraps. Maybe I should design my next chair so there are no scraps.

Construction drawings. Notes helped me keep track of which scraps went where.

Photographs of the finished table: front, side, rear corner, rear, details

Photograph of the table in its natural habitat, our potting shed.


 

 

 

3D Model, Architecture, Design

Affordable Housing Prototype-Part 4 of 4, Animation and 3D

From static to model to animation, and some 3D views

Once you have a 3D model, you can make an animated walk-through. Click on the arrow button in the lower left-hand corner, and wait a few seconds for it to start.

Don’t try to enlarge this image, my website can only display a lower resolution video that is best viewed small.Even with the software and resolution limitations, it gives a real feeling of what it would be like to walk through this neighborhood.

I had a lot of fun making this, my first animation. I learned a tremendous amount about making animations, and how much time you can spend selecting angles, sequences and generally fiddling around.

Our cat makes his second website cameo appearance in this animation.

 

3D Photographs

A 3D model also allows me to indulge in one of my old interests-stereo photography. The basic principal is that you take two photos of the same scene. The camera is moved over between them by the distance between your eyes. Then you show the left photo to the left eye, the right photo to the right eye, and your brain creates the 3D depth. Here are two old ways of doing this.

Free ViewYou can get the most striking depth using this method. Unfortunately, you can also get a headache and eye strain. It takes some practice, but is quite impressive when you get it.

Click on the image to enlarge. Position your head vertically, about 2 feet from your monitor. Slightly cross your eyes until the two images merge in the middle to form a third image, then focus your crossed eyes on the middle image. It helps to try to get the two images of the person to exactly align.

A more detailed description of how to free view, with some examples, can be viewed at: http://education.sdsc.edu/bewise2009/3d/3dstereo.html

Anaglyph Image

Get out those oh-so-stylish red and blue glasses you saved from childhood, and take a look at this image. An anaglyph combines the two photos above. One image is tinted blue, the other red. When wearing the red/blue glasses, each eye sees only one image and voila’-3D!

This image was created using terrific (and free!) anaglyph software written by  Takashi Setitani. One source for red/blue glasses is: http://www.rainbowsymphony.com/freestuff.html