Spiders are abundantly found in nature and most ecosystems, making up more than 47 000 species. This ecological success is in part due to the exceptional mechanics of the spider web, with its strength, toughness, elasticity and robustness, which originate from its hierarchical structures all the way from sequence design to web architecture. It is a unique example in nature of high-performance material design. In particular, to survive in different environments, spiders have optimized and adapted their web architecture by providing housing, protection, and an efficient tool for catching prey. The most studied web in literature is the two-dimensional (2D) orb web, which is composed of radial and spiral threads. However, only 10% of spider species are orb-web weavers, and three-dimensional (3D) webs, such as funnel, sheet or cobwebs, are much more abundant in nature. The complex spatial network and microscale size of silk fibres are significant challenges towards determining the topology of 3D webs, and only a limited number of previous studies have attempted to quantify their structure and properties. Here, we focus on developing an innovative experimental method to directly capture the complete digital 3D spider web architecture with micron scale resolution. We built an automatic segmentation and scanning platform to obtain high-resolution 2D images of individual cross-sections of the web that were illuminated by a sheet laser. We then developed image processing algorithms to reconstruct the digital 3D fibrous network by analysing the 2D images. This digital network provides a model that contains all of the structural and topological features of the porous regions of a 3D web with high fidelity, and when combined with a mechanical model of silk materials, will allow us to directly simulate and predict the mechanical response of a realistic 3D web under mechanical loads. Our work provides a practical tool to capture the architecture of sophisticated 3D webs, and could lead to studies of the relation between architecture, material and biological functions for numerous 3D spider web applications.

Three-dimensional spider webs feature highly intricate fiber architectures, which can be represented via 3-D scanning and modeling. To allow novel interpretations of the key features of a 3-D Cyrtophora citricola spider web, we translate complex 3-D data from the original web model into music, using data sonification. We map the spider web data to audio parameters such as pitch, amplitude, and envelope. Paired with a visual representation, the resulting audio allows a unique and holistic immersion into the web that can describe features of the 3-D architecture (fiber distance, lengths, connectivity, and overall porosity of the structure) as a function of spatial location in the web. Using granular synthesis, we further develop a method to extract musical building blocks from the sonified web, transforming the original representation of the web data into new musical compositions. We build a new virtual, interactive musical instrument in which the physical 3-D web data are used to generate new variations in sound through exploration of different spatial locations and grain-processing parameters. The transformation of sound from grains to musical arrangements (variations of melody, rhythm, harmony, chords, etc.) is analogous to the natural bottom–up processing of proteins, resembling the design of sequence and higher-level hierarchical protein material organization from elementary chemical building blocks. The tools documented here open possibilities for creating virtual instruments based on spider webs for live performances and art installations, suggesting new possibilities for immersion into spider web data, and for exploring similarities between protein folding, on the one hand, and assembly and musical expression, on the other.

Spiders are nature’s engineers that build lightweight and high-performance web architectures often several times their size and with very few supports; however, little is known about web mechanics and geometries throughout construction, especially for three-dimensional (3D) spider webs. In this work, we investigate the structure and mechanics for a Tidarren sisyphoides spider web at varying stages of construction. This is accomplished by imaging, modeling, and simulations throughout the web-building process to capture changes in the natural web geometry and the mechanical properties. We show that the foundation of the web geometry, strength, and functionality is created during the first 2 d of construction, after which the spider reinforces the existing network with limited expansion of the structure within the frame. A better understanding of the biological and mechanical performance of the 3D spider web under construction could inspire sustainable robust and resilient fiber networks, complex materials, structures, scaffolding, and self-assembly strategies for hierarchical structures and inspire additive manufacturing methods such as 3D printing as well as inspire artistic and architectural and engineering applications.

3D spider webs exhibit highly intricate fiber architectures and owe their outstanding performance to a hierarchical organization that spans orders of magnitude in length scale from the molecular silk protein, to micrometer-sized fibers, and up to cm-scale web. Similarly, but in a completely different physical manifestation, music has a hierarchical structure composed of elementary sine wave building blocks that can be combined with other waveforms to create complex timbres, which are then arranged within larger-scale musical compositions. Although apparently different, spider webs and music have many similarities, as we point out in this work. Here, we propose an intuitive and interactive way to explore and visualize a 3D Cyrtophora citricola spider web geometry that has been digitally modeled with micron-scale details from full-scale laboratory experiments. We use model-based sonification to translate the web architecture into sound, allowing for aural perception and interpretation of its essential topological features. We implement this sonification using Unity3D and Max/MSP to create an interactive spider web environment in which a user travels through a virtual spider web. Each silk fiber in their field of view is sonified using different sine waves. Together, the sonified fibers create new and more complex timbres that reflects the architecture of 3D spider webs. These concepts are implemented into a spider web-based instrument for live performances, art installations and data exploration. It provides an unprecedented and creative way to immerse the composer, audience and user in an immersive multimedia experience generated by the complexity of a 3D spider web.

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