The image they wanted was of the White House and it had to be of a quality and size worthy of our President to bestow on visitors from foreign countries.

Since this was extra extra important (but really aren’t they all) – we took our time and spent over 20 hours reviewing every possible photograph and image we could find on the White House.  In the process learned a lot about the history and changes made to the architecture over the different administrations (like the front stairs, the car port, even the roof).  In the end, we settled on focusing the the primary and most distinguishable elements of the White House with the hopes that these features wouldn’t change anytime soon.

and so we built the White House

In a matter of speaking we did and when it was done we realized that we had a lot more detail than was needed.  Now don’t get us wrong, detail is a good thing and one of the principal aspects of every design we do.  However, the laser doesn’t like too much detail and the results can produce an unusually ugly piece which can take a long time to produce (not a good thing).  We say ugly because all laser designs in crystal deal with a certain level of transparency and because of that, too much detail creates clusters of dots that turn into visual blobs for the viewer blocking other details.  Regardless, the issue can become quite frustrating at times and we needed to be revisit the approach.  In the end, we decided to remove a number of elements that “clouded” the image while preserving some of the smaller details that round out the piece.

Detail View of White House

Above is a collection of close ups showing the final design in crystal.  The detail is allowed to show itself without overwhelming the total image, while subtle elements such as the hanging lantern in the car port or the sconces on the lower part of the front steps help add to its character. [ED: Time Capsule Note - the above was done using a red laser technique which produces larger point sizes than the more advanced green lasers mostly employed today.]

After the White House staff approved the final design, it was presented to the President.  As for the final approval from the Commander in Chief himself, we were told that “the President didn’t stand a chance after the First Lady saw it first” – of course, that’s the story we got and we’re pretty sure the actual comments were probably filtered for National Security sake.

Needless to say, you can not buy this design anywhere – this size, design and even some of the subtle elements have been reserved by us for the United States Government.  After all, how special would a diplomat feel if they were to walk out of the White House and bump into a vendor selling the SAME crystal regardless of the signature on it – I mean wars have been started for less!

The Obvious Plug

We hope you enjoyed the little story behind our design of the White House; and remember if the President can trust us to get the job done – you can too!

Above is a rendering showing laser points of a client model for evaluation – as you can see the inherent translucency of the medium reveals too much of the surfaces on the back side and in-between – in a word confusing and ugly.  This problem can be further complicated since it is 3D – meaning the viewer can see additional angles that hide elements due to this visual overlapping.  The sad part is many of the additional surfaces that typically included in most 3D models have already been removed from this example.  Meaning “out of the box” these models would appear more dense (which isn’t a good thing).

Below is the solid model of the above model and now you can see the model for what it truly is.  More importantly, details that are present in the above model are now clearly visible.  This is because we see the shadows enforcing the contours of the shape we are looking at (lack of transparency helps too).  Look again at the model above and you will see how these shadows are not enforced.  Needless to say, we advised the client against this type of model for their design.

Understanding this and a host of other visual cues allows us to design in ways that complement the medium in a way that is recognizable.  We do this a number of ways through selective surface manipulation, density selection and just a sense of what works through constant practice in this medium. This is perhaps one of the single largest reasons we provide our service and expertise in collaboration with other designers to bring a practical solution to their vision.

Below is an example of a properly balanced model that reveals its components while not overly obscuring itself.

One other thing that should be mentioned since we are on a bit of an educational bend is scale (size).  The design above is in a 4″ cube which allows the model to breath a bit.  If the cube was half this size it would have less points to define it because the points don’t get any closer together – and we all know what happens if they do get too close together.  However, smaller designs can work if the design complements the medium size.

That’s all for now!

In the real world, printing is done on white paper, ink is black, shadows are dark, highlight is light and the world is round.  In our world, our paper is clear, the ink is white, shadows don’t exist, white is viewed as substance (the world is still round just upside down and backwards).

here is an example swatch of how tone is rendered by a laser – remember the BLACK is clear
continuous tone on top/segmented in middle/laser dithering below

Since we don’t have shadows to define elements, we do have contrast between our “colors” – in the example above we can clearly discern the difference between segments on the bottom row – more so the farther apart they are.  This is a good example of how textures in an image or model can best be used to enhance the result using our “inks”.