04 Week
3D Scanning and 3D Printing.
This was a very fun week for me. I really enjoyed the use of the sense scanners and figuring out their limitations. They were both better but also not as good as I expected. On the one hand, alot of the process is almost up to luck. Lots of glitches and the limitations of the space made scanning certain things quite difficult (full body scans, smaller transparent objects, etc). On the other the process is so easy and the interface quite simple that starting over ins't much trouble. At first Matt, Casey and I tried scanning each others portraits.
We found it's easier to go around the person as opposed to spinning someone on a chair. Maybe the changes in lighting when you spin them makes it hard for the scanner to pick up. Lighter hair picks up better than darker, however the scanner performed decently regardless.
I've been thinking alot about maps, geography and cartography and I thought this would be a good way to merge my artistic interests with the projects in this class. I've been reading about the ways that remote sensing technologies and GIS are being used within military environments, contemporary archaeology, architecture etc. I decided to create a ficitonal topographic model using the 3d scanner and the printer.
I've been playing around with paper, trying to create forms and planes by wrinkling and pinching the surface of the paper.
The 3d scanner was surprisingly effective at picking up the planes of the paper, even as it simplified the forms a little bit. I was worried that the white paper woudln't show up that well in the scan but it picked up the shape quickly.
There were a few glitches before I got a scan that I was satisfied with, then imported to blender and using a boolean operation I made a mold to cast into.
I then printed the mold over night, which took about 5 hours. It turned out nicely, although I maybe would have made it deeper and left room for the shallow bits of the topographic model. The texture left by the 3d printer actually turned out an advantage, as each slice of the print was equivalent to a layer of elevation. This is an experiment for the farication of larger molds I will use later in the semester to create scultural objects using different materials.
