No, it's not a submarine!
Something I'm doing for work... thought
I'd share
it. The original is much larger in resolution, so some of the
smaller
details (like the threading) don't show here. It's a cut-away
model of an
injection molding assembly. It was created in AutoCAD from
blueprints,
then exported as a series of .3DS files. I imported the .3DS files
into
PolyTrans and converted them into a POV smooth_triangle mesh. The
final
POV file was a whopping 57.6 meg.
How it works: The plastic (in pellet
form) is
fed into the large hole at the upper left and the cylinder is heated by
the
heater bands that are wrapped around it. The temperature ranges
from
300-900 degrees fahrenheit, depending on the resin used. The screw
spins
inside the cylinder and forces the melted plastic out the nozzle orifice
and
into a mold. That's the basic synopsis, anyway. The vertical
cylinders are thermocouples.