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What changed? The ancient stone shop was transformed into a modern factory that extends the capabilites of stone fabrication.
Today, instead of carving every piece of stone by hand, all but the most intricate detail is cut by machinery - sophisticated machinery that is completely contolled by computers. The CAD/CAM system allows for the creation of three-dimensional designs on the computer - designs which are then automatically communicated to the machines that cut the stone.
And this automation has even moved one step further at the cathedral Stoneworks, the newly established profit-making company that was formed to complete construction of the non-profit cathedral as well as to fabricate commercial jobs throughout the country
(look for an article in the future issue of STONE WORLD).
Borrowing technology from facial reconstruction, Cathedral Stoneworks has connected a visualizer to its CAD/CAM system. The visualizer can actually take a three-dimensional picture of something and communicate that image through the system's computers which is then directs the machines as they carve the image into stone. Via computers, the object is directly transformed into stone. Skilled stonecarvers finish the intricate details.
Although users of teh system recommend its use for starting sculptures that may eventually deteriorate or for replacing existing facades or achitectural ornomentation for restoration or renovation, the use of such a process could lead the micro imaginative to visualize the stone imdustry one day advancing so far that a person could step into a booth, pull the curtain, and have a visualing machine render his likeness in stone "while-u-wait."
In reality, such a scenario is highly improbable and more fiction than prediction, but that's really what happened to one prominant member of the stone industry when his image was captured by the visualizer and rendered into a three-dimensional stone likeness - the result, a limestone bust that was presented to him to honor him for his years of service in the stone industry, (the complete stonry on this will also be featured in a future issue of STONE WORLD.)
In microcosm, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and the Cathedral Stoneworks represent the entire stone indusrty - stone age materials whose use has blossomed through the use of space age tools, technologies that continue extending the limits of stone design and construction. |
