Axolotl

PAACADEMY offers online Axolotl plugin courses, teaching computational designers how to generate complex, cell-based 3D structures including Auxetics and beam-based lattices for functional 3D printing.

Axolotl is a Grasshopper plugin developed for generating and manipulating complex 3D structures including Auxetic structures, beam-based lattices, and other repeating geometric patterns used in computational structural and product design. Its cell-based structure generation capability makes it particularly suited to the parametric design of structural lattices for 3D printing, where precise control over unit cell geometry dictates physical performance.

At PAACADEMY, Axolotl is taught in Structural Evolution by Nolan Kim alongside other volumetric plugins to cover specific families of structural geometry:

• Auxetic Structures: Designing geometries with a negative Poisson's ratio, allowing materials to expand laterally when stretched.
• Beam-Based Lattices: Generating highly organized 3D space frames with tunable node thicknesses for 3D printing.
• Cell-Based Patterning: Mapping repeating functional geometries across complex 3D surfaces in footwear and product design.