Glass with multiple thin metal-oxide layers vapor-deposited on its surface — the layered stack reflects some wavelengths and transmits others, so the glass shows two different colors depending on whether you look at reflected or transmitted light. Stained-glass work, art-glass jewelry, NASA mirrors, the lighting filters in theatrical instruments. The optics are interference; the finish is film stack.
Multi-layer thin-film stack of metal oxides (TiO₂, SiO₂, MgF₂, Nb₂O₅) deposited by physical vapor deposition (sputter or e-beam evaporation) onto float glass at high vacuum. 5–30 layers, total thickness 100–300 nm. Each layer's thickness tuned to a quarter-wavelength of a target visible color; constructive / destructive interference at the layer interfaces gives the dichroic split. NASA originated the technology for spacecraft optics in the 1950s; CBS Labs commercialized for theatrical lighting in the 1970s; Bullseye Glass and Dichroic Magic brought it to the studio art-glass market in the 1980s. Coating side fragile to abrasion; usually capped with clear glass in art-glass / fused-glass work.
character — two-color split (reflected vs transmitted), iridescent shift with viewing angle, optical-grade.
ASTM B488 / B456 / B689 plating standards; Powder Coating Institute and industry-association literature.
House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.
Materials and processes for people who design and make things.
A local-first library of materials, processes, applications, and finishes — equal weight, citable everywhere, with cost-over-volume curves, trade-off profiles, equipment-tier filters, and second-life paths layered onto the data so a student can move from "what is this" toward "what's actually buildable here, now, by me." Part of the renato.design ecosystem — sibling of Plenum, Specimen, Ingenue, gesture, graf, and the Renato Rhino plug-ins. Form and matter, inseparable.
Half of teaching materials is teaching how the material is made into the thing. The standard subscription library was always light on that half. The wedge here isn't better samples or a prettier interface — it's treating Process as a peer entity, not a footnote.
Conway's Material World on raw materials, Lefteri's Making It on processes, Forty's Concrete and Culture, Sparke's Design in Context, Bürdek's Design: History, Theory and Practice of Product Design, Schröpfer's Material Design on materials in architecture, Winchester's The Perfectionists on tolerance, Minshall's Your Life Is Manufactured on the global supply chain, von Busch's Making Trouble on material activism, Were's How Materials Matter, Hegger / Drexler / Zeumer's Basics Materials, Untracht and McCreight on metalsmithing, USDA Forest Products Lab on woods, GIA on gemstones, Schott / CoorsTek / Toray / Owens Corning datasheets, MakeItFrom for verifiable property numbers, ASM Handbook, ISO standards. Museum holdings draw from the Met, MAD, V&A, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Newark Museum of Art, British Museum, Heard Museum, Smithsonian NMAI, Eiteljorg Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, and Grand Rapids Art Museum — collection-record permalinks only, designer overview pages and exhibition listings excluded. Voice blocks now ride on every entry kind — material, process, application, and finish — and include Ruskin on iron, Anni Albers on twining, Greg Lynn on the shred-and-teeth NURBS lineage, Pugin on the metal that won't be hammered, Barthes / Yanagi / Benjamin channeled within their philosophy; Sparke, Bürdek, Forty, Conway, Schröpfer, Minshall, von Busch, Lefteri, Pat Pruitt, Mary Lee Hu, Tom Joyce, Albert Paley, and the rest of the contemporary makers quoted verbatim with citation. All cited.
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