Models

In this blog I answer some questions about the current 3d modeling work.

History

I first started working on 3d modeling after a series of dreams spread across 3 weeks in September of 2009. In those dreams I was shown the principle of how the Paleo alphabet works.

The 22 letters of the alphabet are folded in 1/2. The first letter folds in 3d space to the last. The same for all the other pairs. 11 pairs.

Each letter pair sits on sides of a cube. They form a 3d space. Within each 3d space there is a single 3d object which projects into the 2d letters we normally draw. This principle forces the variety of shapes known to history as Paleo Hebrew to be severely limited.

We knew the alphabet at the time as Paleo Hebrew, but the world really knows it as Phoenician. In religious circles Paleo Hebrew is said to be an immediate ancestor alphabet to the Hebrew used in Bibles. But, depending on what language expert you use, Hebrew is more sanely thought to be based on Aramaic which is then based on Phoenician.

Phoenician is thought by many linguists to be the basis for all such phonetic alphabets world wide. Including, say Japanese. It traveled far in ancient history.

That this alphabet would have such a design principle was profound. It said there was some geometric relationship between the letter pairs so formed.

It required prophetic insight every day for about 3 weeks as that first round was worked out. Mostly the prophetic encouraged me to keep going and do the impossible. That initial work required extensive lists of sample characters because no single source has all the letters in recognizable forms. The Wa letter, for example, was found in pure form in Runic. Once found, then it could be easily matched to the rest of the example sets.

That folding principle did not fully fix every line segment on every letter, but it came pretty close. The shapes of the letters had pulled in. They also stood up, like Latin, nothing was pitched as is done in so many scripts.

I was happy, and thought I was done. A pattern that has repeated several times at multi year intervals ever since.

At first I used copper wire to think about the shapes. Tactile. But then I switched to pipe cleaner. Easier to fold around to try things. We were given money for a 3d printer, and that changed everything. I could now model on the computer.

The software I use now to design for printing would make this a problem for a few hours, not days, as it was the first time around.

Do It Again

So once the shapes were mostly worked out the top sides of the new 3d models became important. New 2d shapes were forming there. Those shapes are what we know of as vowels and why vowels were never written. If you know your ancient, inspired, alphabet you know your vowels, and where they come from.

Not in those first years, but eventually, I was prophetically told to take new vowel shapes and fold them again. And to fold them again, and again.

Each fold reduces the total number of shapes by 1/2 so eventually only 1 shape remains. That shape is an infinite shape, it folds on itself and creates itself again. So there is no need to keep folding.

Those new 3d shapes, created by folding 2d shapes, form model kits and assemble into objects found in the text.

The most profound was a human skeleton riding on a chariot. There are 2 ways to configure the plow, dash board, and arms. A sower and a reaper could be formed from the same set of shapes. As seen by Ezekiel, the valley of dry bones comes together.

The second set of assembled models, above the folded vowels, forms either a silo or well. Like the Silo and Well, the same shapes assemble differently. This an excellent definition of gender, by the way. Silos were seriously important to Joseph's story and wells are found throughout the text.

Design Constraints

That this would work, at all, with any set of 22 shapes is a crazy idea. Each 3d to 2d fold is what is called a design constraint. Normally, in most real life designs, the design constraints become contradictory. A designer must choose between contradictory design constraints, never both.

These simple alphabet constraints were never contradictory. They fold again and again using the same simple rules all the way to a shape you might know as a jack.

I know how this works, but the exact folding patterns are not explicit anywhere. The work I am currently doing is setting out to provide a way for anyone looking at the displayed objects to quickly verify HOW the folding is done. This is not within the shapes themselves, but in the case that holds them for display. I am designing a set of cases for their display.

Things

The class we took to learn about Paleo Hebrew also explained that each letter in the alphabet is a picture of an object that is a simple thing.

Those things are said to have evolved from Egyptian hieroglyphs. Though it is true that some of the things have Egyptian equivalents, they certainly did NOT evolve this way. The design system used to design them is way more complex than cave art.

In any event, that thing provides a dictionary definition at the letter level. Done well, word definitions don't need dictionaries. The words have meaning that spring from the spelling. This is what our instructor was trying to teach.

This is NOT how the Phoenician alphabet was used around the world. Only the sounds mattered to traders. But, letter based definitions might very well be used if it was designed as the platform for inspired writing. This was the principle in the religious context of the class we took.

3D Things

Eventually I was shown to fold the letters ON THEMSELVES instead of together in pairs. This cannot be used to reconstruct the exact shapes as there is not enough information when the letters are simply doubled. But, once the shapes were known from earlier work this self-folding process was now very fruitful.

When folded this way, each letter exactly creates in 3d space a model of the thing behind the 2d letter. There are 22 different letters, so 22 different things. 22 more design constraints. Let me say this again, that the entire set would work this way is something that ancient shepherds did not work out.

Of the 22 letters taught to us in that first class, they only had about half of the letters correct. We could prove this because the shapes are very clear. Our current working set of letter definitions sprang directly out of that 3d modeling work.

Of course those newly discovered 3d objects also have a new 3rd side in 2d. Those new sides are paired, similar to the vowels found initially. So only 11 new 2d shapes come from those 22 different letter self-folds.

Plants

So, those new 3rd sides fold fold together too. In their pairs. When those shapes are folded they are all diagonally symmetric. This makes them infinitely repeating too.

So the system begins and ends with infinitely repeating objects. Everything in the middle is some sort of broken symmetry.

It was a mystery to me what those shapes were creating. I expected them to assemble into yet more 3d models, like the sower, reaper, silo and well that I already knew.

After some days of puzzling, it became apparent these objects form plant parts and together tell the story of how plants grow. This is a subject directly tied to silos, wells and sowers and reapers, so the entire set has an internally consistent theme.

Punctuation

Finding and modeling 3 punctuation letters is a story by itself. Ancient Phoenician was written with a dot between every word. It took finding actual photographs of rare dead sea scrolls to figure this out. Most scholars do NOT faithfully reproduce what they are passed by history. They convert to Hebrew, say, or other writing systems. They don't leave stuff alone.

We also found that sentences end with what today we would call a colon. This is still true in Hebrew. They use the double dots because at first they used single dots as word breaks. So much makes sense once the original letters are known.

Aramaic uses a 4 dot symbol, at least decoratively, as a sentence or section break. We found this to be part of the set too.

These dot patterns from the punctuation fold through the 3d models as well. This ongoing round of 3d work shows where within the model trees the dots themselves come into existence.

These dots become seeds of various types when combined at the plant level. Sown seed, gathered seed and perhaps threshed seed. The meaning of the final Quad is unclear. It may be a special symbol for Joshua himself.

Cases

So I set out years ago to hold these models in 3d printed cases. These cases do not carry very much information. There is a 5x5 case which does follow the Qu map. That is a story for another day. But the rest of the cases are just carrying cases, no more.

I was clearly shown recently that I needed to build some sort of mountain model and it turned into a proper display for the 3d folding systems I've displayed here. By looking at that mountain anyone can inspect the 3d system's letter folding rules. Curiously, by inspection of those objects, you can see a few that were used in ancient Greek. So at some point this whole system was known publicly as the basis for the alphabet.

I knew the basic start point. Use elevation in these display cases to show relations between objects. This is pretty cool, and I have done high level design for a couple major cases to this end.

But, like the 3d work originally, the prophetic has flowed. It has gone on for weeks, every day, without stopping. It is as strong as it has been at any time since I started Bible Time many years ago. I work to get the day's inspiration into the computer so I am ready for the next day.

Many Cases

As I write today, this is what I believe: There is a system of display cases. It looks like 7 distinct patterns that tell 7 distinct stories using the alphabet letters and their objects in various arrangements. Depending on the problem, there are different places on those display cases to look for the answer.

Those cases are called out in the text. Just like the sower and reaper models are called out in Ezekiel. They give concrete expression to the ideas expressed in the text.

Those cases, or display dioramas, show off different design principles behind the alphabet. It is not possible to fully understand the alphabet without some reference to these systems.

I can finally explain, for example, the width of the pen used to draw the letters in proportion to the size of the letters. I found 1 final line segment that goes into the Sower and Reaper models. This even though there is no change to the letter shapes themselves.

I can explain how the 25 letters we know of in the alphabet can be expanded to 32 letters for, say, Genome decoding.

But, it gets stranger.

Assembled

After the 7 different basic case or maybe better diorama designs, some of them have copies. A total of 26 different copies from that base 7 set of designs. Those 26 finally assemble in 3d space into a spherical model. They face in. They form a model of Eden.

Those who know me well know I was taken to Eden in dreams in late 2004 and early 2005. We once joked that some day I may be 3d printing a model of what I was shown. Especially the problem of reverse gravity. My guide wanted me especially to understand how this works.

This is no longer a joke. It was important to understand so I would be able to finish the alphabet. Of course the alphabet work itself was not even in view as a problem for about 5 years after those dreams.

So what am I doing now? I am designing a kid's map of the entire interior space of Eden.

This work is picking off the rest of the strange symbolic passages in the text. This includes the 4 headwaters of Eden, Zechariah's visions of 2 mountains and 4 chariots, a city on a hill, a special tree, a crystal sea, farms, fields and deserts.

Current Goals

I have my 3d printers available, but am only using them to test print samples of the design. My focus is to keep up with the prophetic and try and get as much of the designs done as I can. I am working out how to do this with no glue, an important lesson from the existing cases.

In design work like this the first step is concept models. The vast expanse of the various designs. Those designs become like the art on jig saw puzzles.

I am also looking at the low level puzzle cutting issues so the thing can be 3d printed on normal 3d printer beds and then clicked together. Then it can be assembled in real 3d space. At the smallest useful scale given normal 3d printing the smallest square cases are around 6 feet across. Others are longer.

How?

Someone asked me recently what this design work is like. I answered it is like making a series of quilts. I am using patterns of squares and sub-dividing triangles that show off various stories.

Unlike a regular quilter, I have a 3rd dimension and lift from the base at times. But even the sides of those climbs are still quilter's squares.

Unlike a regular quilter, the edges of full quilts tie to adjacent panels using a 45 degree raised fold. This is how they form a ball. The patterns in each quilt continue on the next panel. The need for the stories to continue in the next panel is a severe design constraint over the entire set. They force designs in less well defined panels.

Uses

Besides providing context for many scripture stories, I suspect that the designs of Eden where used to encode the text into the human genome. We are clay. Joshua is the potter. Eden is like his house. It was created before we were. The 3d object for the letter Qu provides insight to the design, and Q is a brain, or a computer.

I can see already that the codons of the DNA are not simply a series of letters, with some unknown encoding. The system ratchets, and should decode inbound codons differently based on the state of the system given previous inbound codons. It will always look like gibberish without the decoding key, just as compressed data files are gibberish to anyone just listening to the data stream.

I am going to stick with this season as long as I can. A problem in previous years was stopping before I was really finished. Of course I could be outpaced by the prophetic and need to take a season doing something else. Perhaps printing what I know? I don't know.

More Later,

Phil