CLIENT:
In-house

DATE: 
October 2018

FEATURED:
Yanko Design →

SOUND, VISUALIZED

A few months ago, Magnus was developing a technique to model a microphone grid mesh in a CAD format (NX). It was meant to support an industrial designer to elevate his visual presentation for a microphone concept he had designed at that time. The grid came out better than I expected, so we decided to design a concept ourselves.
So, we started researching different forms of how sound could be visualized, when we stumbled upon a phenomenon known as cymatics. The phenomenon is a study of how vibrations creates waves in a substance. This could be with a non-Newtonian fluid on a speaker, or adding fine grains (sald/sand/etc) on a flat piece of surface and connecting vibrations/sound waves to it. In certain frequencies that resonates with the plate, the grains will move into regular patterns on the surface, some of which are beautiful.

Cymatics

Image showing the phenomenon of cymatics with sand in action. Image courtesy of Nigel Stanford (www.nigelstanford.com)
On the webpage for Cymatics Group we came across a full study of different patterns, and how they will repeat only in a larger scale ​​​​​on different wavelengths. It was here we got the idea to utilize one of these patterns to design a microphone. Below you’ll see a small selection of the frequencies we were looking at, and the selected pattern to be used for a further shape exploration.

Pattern exploration and implementation

From these patterns we found pattern from the wavelength of 226Hz to be a great fit for pursuing the microphone design. And it’s this very frequency that gave the microphone it’s name: Mike 226
 
The pattern was given a circular warp in photoshop, such that it could be traced and modeled into a spherical shape in NX, which stands as the essence of the shape exploration for this concept.

Technical info

The process

The design was carefully designed using engineering CAD tools (NX), making sure the curves had a smooth flowing shape within the classifications of class A surface modeling.

It was then visualized in KeyShot, making sure we caught all both the overview of the design, but also the intricate details included in the design.

Mike 226 is an in-house concept creation by Miror, inspired by the phenomenon called Cymatics and how sound waves creates particular patterns on planar surfaces.

Tags: CAD / cgi / design / industrial design / keyshot / NX CAD / product / product design / render / visualization