07 Molding & Casting

design a 3D mold, machine it, and cast parts from it

The object of my choice for molding was an orange for this assignment. I first used the NextEngine 3D scanner to scan my orange.

Because the mesh that was generated from the 3D scan had a bunch of holes, I used MeshLab to reconstruct it. I did this by first importing the .OBJ file NextEngine generated. Then, using MonteCarlo Sampling, I extracted the points from the mesh. Hiding the layer of the original .OBJ, I selected to Compute Surface Normals from Points and then Poisson Surface Reconstruction to generate my final closed mesh.

Although, in this process, the resolution tanked quite a bit. I tried to increase the samples and reconstruction parameters but in the end I settled and imported it to Rhino. In rhino, I converted the Mesh to Nurbs. I cut the bottom chunks off by laying over a sphere then Boolean Intersection the two to get my final object.

Using Solidworks circular pattern feature, I created a spikey ball which I then imported into Rhino and inserted into my 3d scanned orange. I boolean unioned it to form into a single object.

Tools:

NextEngine 3D scanner > MeshLab > Rhino > Shopbot WAX > Mold silicone > cast