Project description/assignment. I used my digital SLR to take about 40 images of the camera case I use to store the camera. I then imported these into a program (Recap) that converted the images into a single file containing a 3-D rendition of the camera bag. The file was then edited using Meshmixer. Editing included removing extraneous portions of the 3-D image, and adding more components. After a great deal of experimentation, I added some of Meshmixer's internal shapes, including cones, a cylinder and a torus, a rendition of a human head, a human arm, and a frog's appendage. Additional editing resulted in a unified object ready for 3-D printing through the Lamson Library.
Lateral thinking. My original plan was to photograph my pocket barometer and a small, stainless-steel espresso cup (the exact same cup I used in the previous project), then combine and manipulate (using Meshmixer) these shapes (once rendered in Recap) for an interesting dynamic form. My thinking was that the pressure from the fluid implied by the cups could be "measured" using several copies of the barometer. Here is a picture of these two objects:
When neither of those objects were rendered correctly, I switched to the camera bag that I used to bring my DSLR to the computer lab. It turned out that the roughness of the object's surface strongly affects the fidelity of the Recap rendering. Both the barometer and the cup were smooth and quite shiny, while the camera bag (made of canvas) was much rougher, and it rendered fairly well. I took about 40 images of the camera bag. A sample of these is shown below.
Photos of original camera bag and the Recap rendering of the camera bag (click for full size):
Macquettes/Material studies (click for full size). Once the camera bag was rendered in 3-D, I began manipulating the object, adding to it from the available objects in Meshmixer. First I added a human appendage (right arm), then a frog appendage (left arm). Next I added a human head, then an inverted cone for a hat. I realized I was recreating the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz,, and then recalled the many musical numbers in the film of that book. I decided to adjust the orientation of the arms and head, so that it looked as if the Tim Man was dancing. For a lower body, I used an inverted cone, then an elongated disk for a stand (to allow the finished object to stand upright). As a final touch, I added a torus and gave it a jaunty tilt. The final object (shown below) is relatively dynamic, because it appears top-heavy and off center (with one arm out and the head tilted). The tilted torus makes it even more dynamic.
Comments on the finished piece. It took several attempts before the Print Desk was ready to create the object in 3-D. The main problem stemmed from the arms, particularly the frog fingers (on the left side), which were too thin. I used the "make solid" tool too many times in Meshmixer, which over-smoothed the surface texture of the camera bag, obliterated the fingers on the left arm, and wiped out some of the facial features as well.
