alt Hacker NewsWorth noting that the stonemasons of Sagrada Familia (the catholic basilica Barcelona) have been using CNC to carve it's stones since early 1990s. Most Barcelonians thought they would never see the temple finished in their lifetimes, myself included. Part of the progress that made its completion possible this year is thanks to this technology improving over time.
EDIT: Actually, it’s a mix of CNC roughing to shape the stone, followed by manual finishing. According to the Sagrada Família’s website, this allows each stone to remain a unique piece of craftsmanship while significantly speeding up the process.
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Didn't know that. This is what most excites me about the technology. Building beautiful and well crafted things historically has been extremely expensive. There is an Italian company I follow on X that specializes in CNC sculpting of Renaissance quality marble statues. Would love to see more bronze and marble statues around town celebrating society's heroes and heroines.
What's kind of funny about CNC is there is a wood working tool that is the opposite of what you just mentioned. The Shaper Origin is a CNC router where the gross movements of the router are provided by the human operator's hands moving the thing, and the fine movements of the cutting head inside the router body are provided by XYZ positioning of the cutting head reacting to the machine's position over the workpiece using optical tracking. So you can get precision and an expansive work range, with a small footprint of the tool.