Digital icebergs, by an amazing visionary.

One of the largest sculptures ever produced using Additive Manufacturing.

February 4, 2019

Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle met with CIDEAS in late 2005. He had acquired the 3D topographical scans of an Iceberg, which he personally visited off the coast of Canada. Iñigo had envisioned an enormous sculpture for a scheduled exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Scanned data was interpolated into STL CAD files, which became 531 independent joints and 3D printed by CIDEAS. These printed joints were then used in conjunction with; 1,062 anodized tubes and over 3,000 pins, which in turn, were assembled by Iñigo and his team, to create the final piece.

It was imperative that the 531 joints used to produce the final piece were strong and extremely accurate, due to the overall size and span of the final Iceberg.

Iñigo’s first sculpture was designed to hang from the ceiling and initially had incorporated 31 SLS parts for the internal joints, eventually, those were replaced in future sculptures, due to the difficult nature of drilling into the rigid, hard Nylon material.

To date, five sculptures have been produced, three of which span 2 stories in height and have a diameter of approximately 20 ft.

Unfortunately, in 2005 very few people, let alone journalists, understood the importance of Iñigo’s work. Ironically he was highlighting the technology soon to be exploited in a new format, he was truly a contemporary in an undiscovered field.