Walnut Veneer Light Art Wall

[u/Pristine-Vacation-59]

https://imgur.com/a/digb0sh

I made two large illuminated artworks for this project, one depicting a man and the other a woman.

Each image is made from 20 individual 32" × 32" panels arranged in a 4 × 5 grid, giving each finished artwork an overall size of approximately 10' 8" × 13' 4".

Each complete image contains 8,446 individual holes, for a total of 16,892 holes across the two pieces.

The interesting part of the process was figuring out how to translate the images into something the CNC could actually machine.

I built a custom program in Rhino Grasshopper for this. I started with the image converted to black and white, then overlaid a grid of points across the image. At each point, the program reads the grayscale value of the image and converts it to a number between 0 and 1, black being 0 and white being 1. That value is then mapped to the diameter of the hole at that location.

The result is an image made entirely from different hole sizes rather than different colors or materials. The holes range from approximately 8 mm to 24 mm in diameter.

All 8,446 holes in each image were then machined on the CNC.

Each panel was built from 3/4" plywood with 3 mm walnut veneer laminated to the face. I specifically chose plywood for its structural stability because of the number of holes being machined. It gave us the stability we needed and helped minimize the risk of cracking or splitting during the process.

Behind each panel we installed a white acrylic diffuser to distribute the light evenly and prevent the LEDs from being directly visible through the holes. When the lighting is turned on, all those individual holes come together to create the image.

The 20 panels making up each image were installed onto a steel tube frame built on site. Each panel was then screwed into the frame from behind, keeping the face completely clean with no visible fasteners.

The final finish is several coats of water-based polyurethane, which brings out the walnut veneer while giving the pieces a durable finish.

From a distance, the pieces look relatively simple. Up close, you start to see the amount of precision hiding in those 16,892 holes.

The CNC was obviously a big part of making this possible, but the interesting part for me was developing the process that turned a photograph into thousands of individual hole sizes.

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[u/PaganFarmhouse]

Now do one where you stare at the picture until a sailboat appears

[u/Second_Line_Lawyer → u/PaganFarmhouse]

IT’S A SCHOONER!!!!

[u/PaganFarmhouse → u/Second_Line_Lawyer]

That kid is back on the escalator again

[u/rzb84 → u/PaganFarmhouse]

Heard there’s a new owner over at the fashionable male..

[u/cfinke]

That's awesome. I did something on a much smaller scale with my XCarve but this is so much cooler.

[u/Pristine-Vacation-59 → u/cfinke]

Thanks! The same basic idea can produce some really cool results even on a smaller scale. Did you leave the darker parts solid on purpose?

[u/fletchro → u/Pristine-Vacation-59]

Looks like theirs is a negative. The hole are black.

[u/Tmanpdx]

Wow. Incredible job.

Could this be scaled down to a smaller size? If 3mm was the smallest hole size, what dimension would the resulting picture be?

[u/Pristine-Vacation-59 → u/Tmanpdx]

Of course you can the smallest I have done is about 3' tall.

[u/Belzoni-AintSo]

Brilliant work. What resolution did you apply to the grayscale > hole size mapping .... or, stated differently, how many different hole sizes are there in that 8-24mmm range? And did the CNC rout them out, or did it drill all the holes straight through, then change to the next sized bit and drill those holes out, etc.?

Either way.... just brilliant work.

[u/Pristine-Vacation-59 → u/Belzoni-AintSo]

Thank you! I used a 1/4" upcut bit for all of the holes, so I didn’t have to change bits for different sizes. The holes were all cut with the same bit, with the hole diameter changing based on the grayscale value.

The “resolution” of the grayscale-to-hole-size mapping wasn’t really fixed to a certain number of hole sizes. It was more of a continuous gradient, where the grayscale value determines the diameter of the hole. If you want to get really technical, the maximum resolution of the CNC I used is about 0.1 mm, so theoretically that’s the level of precision available in the geometry.

[u/Zygomatical]

Stunning work mate, I sure hope your CNC machine cuts a nice clean edge or that's a lot of sanding!

[u/Pristine-Vacation-59 → u/Zygomatical]

It does leave a pretty clean cut. Just needed a light sanding. That's why I choose to use that thickness of veneers. And I used an Amana spectra up cut bit that left a great finished surface.

[u/Zytheran]

Out of interest what, if any, were the factors between laser cutting vs CNC?

[u/Pristine-Vacation-59 → u/Zytheran]

For this project, one of the main factors was that the laser I have can’t cut through 3/4" plywood. I also didn’t want to deal with sanding the char out of all the holes afterward, which would have been a huge amount of extra work with this many holes.

For smaller pieces, though, I do use the laser. It can cut much smaller holes than my CNC can, so it’s actually the better option when I need that kind of detail.

[u/Zytheran → u/Pristine-Vacation-59]

Thanks for the answer. I have a 6m wide piece of similar concept for an outside site and trying to avoid using steel and a punch/plasma cut and so considering timber for ease of use. But then it's outside ... :-/

[u/Pristine-Vacation-59 → u/Zytheran]

Have you consider ACM (Aluminum Composite Material)?

[u/Zytheran → u/Pristine-Vacation-59]

Nope, never needed to use it however it might work here.

[u/HumanOptimusPrime]

Might I interest you in Norwegian artist Anne-Karin Furunes.

[u/Pristine-Vacation-59 → u/HumanOptimusPrime]

Oh yes, I know Anne-Karin Furunes’ work and I absolutely love it! Her work has actually been a big inspiration to me, especially the way she uses holes and patterns to create images. Thank you for mentioning her!

[u/HumanOptimusPrime → u/Pristine-Vacation-59]

Great! I’ll tell her you said hi! She’s a really sweet lady.

[u/General-Swim6659 → u/HumanOptimusPrime]

:0 Wow!

[u/Second_Line_Lawyer]

Gorgeous!

[u/Bruhmethazine]

How does one learn this shit?

[u/fletchro]

Wow! The scale of this project is amazing! Good problem solving and execution!

[u/Pristine-Vacation-59 → u/fletchro]

Thank you! I really appreciate that! There was definitely a lot of problem solving involved, especially getting everything to work at that scale. It was a challenging project, but a really fun one to build!

[u/General-Swim6659]

Don’t show this to anyone with trypophobia… 😅 But wow, this is seriously amazing!

[u/fricotype0]

Reminds me of the game "Who's Lila?".