December 2023 Challenge: 3D Glastonbury Tor
Well I appear to have guessed the challenge clue correct for a second month. But this month I might actually have a go at making a map.
I have had a good think about it and realize that the obvious solstice map is for Stone Henge but I will leave that one to another entrant and concentrate on Glastonbury Tor. I am sure the world knows of Glastonbury Festival where there is an annual arts/music festival every year and attracts about 100K people and is a bit of a big deal in the UK. That festival occurs in Pilton a few miles away but often in the background of the shots of the band at the Pyramid stage you can see the Tor in the background.
The Tor is a prominent hill lying in lowland area known as the Somerset Levels. So it sticks out quite a bit and is a well known UK landmark. It is said (by those of a certain persuasion...) that there lies lines of power that emanate from the Tor and connect to the other historic landmarks like Stone Henge. These are known as Lay Lines and make up a web of interconnected lines of power that the ancient people used as part of their worship.
The Druids make up one of many alternative faiths in Glastonbury Town and there are a few days of the year where there are processions of various nature. But on the Solstices the Druids pass through the town high street and proceed up the Tor for usually the Sunrise but also the Sunset too. Lots of people gather up there on those days and its quite a lively place to be.
I could just make a map of the Tor or the Lay Lines but they have been done to death. What I would like to try and have a go at is a 3D model of the Tor hill. I could do my usual 3D stuff virtually using graphics but this time I would like to make one in Paper Craft style.
If anybody has been paying attention to my filters its obvious that I have a paper laser cutter which I have built myself and trying to debug for the last few years. But its working great now and I can make cards and paper craft with a lot of precision. The difficulty would be what cuts to make in order to make a 3D Tor.
So thats my challenge. Its an unusual map and probably not one which might win but I need the impetus to have a go and because its December where there might be some time over the Christmas area when I will have some free time I think I have the chance to try this out.
My intent is to make some cuts in lines like contours in one sheet and pull up the peak of the hill and see whether the cuts allow the paper to expand and the amount, position, spacing and shape of cuts will restrict the paper movement in order to form the shape. It might not work but I would like to see if that is possible. So some of the initial phase might be to try some test cuts and see how much slope I get with different spacing and styles of cuts. If that completely fails then there is the fallback of cutting out polygons and gluing them all together but thats a lot of effort and it would be nice to be able to go from sheet of paper to 3D model in one process.
Wish me luck cos I think I am gonna need it. Normally I have a good idea of how to make the result but this time there is a lot of ambiguity and potential for complete failure !
