Digital Bodies
📅 This week started on September 29th.
We learned about digital fabrication, starting with the human body. The body can be used as a canvas, from different perspectives. For me, there is a big relationship between the human body and architecture, in fact, the body has always been a key element in architectural design and practice (an nowadays in industrial design too, mostly for ergonomics).
▪ What I made?
🗹 Include some inspiration: research on artists or projects that work with the human body
🗹 Document the use of 3D scanner and softwares to acquire a 3D model
🗹 Document the process of repairing and/or manipulating a 3D mesh and slicing it.
🗹 Create my ready to cut file for laser cutting, learn how to use the laser cutter and document the workflow and upload your 3D and 2D files
🗹 Learn about the fab lab processes, booking system, usage, machine demos, tools and safety rules
🗹 Build and/or assemble my mannequin, create a stop motion assembling it or stepped process
▪ Inspiration for this week
I liked the sculptures from Antony Gormley.This remind me the body architecture from the architect and artist Theo Van Doesburg.
With this, I wanted to fabricate a human model with an stijl or bauhaus style but also I wanted to have an "optical sculpture" so, my purpose is that from one model you can have at least two perspectives to see it. Julian Voss-Andreae inspired me with his wall works and his interesting sculptures that are like a magic trick because they appear and disappear.
▪️ Technical Part
If you don't want to download a model from any source and you want to create it in a 3D software, you need to download MakeHuman ,there you'll find many features and parameteres to make your model. I liked this program because you can customize everything in your character.
For this part I didn't do a very elaborated human, in fact, I only changed his pose (which I downloaded from the community) and the main parameters about his age, muscles, etc.
▪ How to download from the community
▪️ Customizing main features
▪️ Export your human
Once you get your model, it's time to fabricate it! I imported my .stl model in Rhinoceros and start cutting and deleting the parts I didn't want to use. To make changes to the mesh you need to use the mesh tools from the software like meshsplit, meshboolean or meshbooleansplit. After I got my two parts of the body, I tried to get one part more similar to a male and the other more similar to a female body.
In order to achieve my initial purpose, I used the command contour to start exploring the slices and how they'll be after cutting the model. When I had de clear idea I exported both bodies to the Slicer.
Slicer for Fusion 360 is very useful to divide the object into layers and it has different techniques for cutting your 3D model (To get the slices you can use also use Rhinoceros but it doesn't have all the tools to get automatically your slices in
.dxf)
At first, I didn't know which technique could be better. Finally, I decided the interlocked slices so you'll have vertical and horizontal slices (waffle structure). The most tricky part was to make both models match each other and avoid any issue in the vectors. After some tries I got it!
For laser cutting we used the RDWorks software at the lab. The material I'm using is MDF with 3mm of thickness. First I imported the .dxf file and checked again everything before start cutting. I kept the remaining eye and mouth holes because I liked the way they looked on both parts.
📓 IMPORTANT NOTES FOR LASER CUTTING
Challenge Completed ✔️
Then... 💭 What if I join both models? How does it look like?
To finish this part, I put the models above a mirror just for try and I liked it because it seems to be the complete human there
To learn and have fun! ⬇️
▪ Exploring 3D scanning 🔎
This process started with the kinect sensor to obtain de data from the real model, going through mesh mixer and it ends with the model on the right.
First: I downloaded the Skanect to obtain the model using the Kinect Sensor from the Xbox 360. At the lab we made some tests until we got the body scanned. It was kind of tricky because the person standing in front of the scanner has to be very careful with his/her movements while the other person is going up and down with the scanner.
💡 HOW TO MOVE THE SCANNER
For a better understanding I recommend to use the movil app called Qlone, there you can scan any object with your phone and it shows you the movements to do with the phone in order to get a good result. I used an spinning plate (it was easier for me in that way).
After some tries I got this ⬇️ and the results aren't too bad.
The settings: You need to define the space you'll be working with. And before exporting to .obj o .stl it is recommended to watertight your model.
After scanning: I used MeshMixer to smooth my model and to fix the hole at the top of the head. You have different tool for sculpt your model. I just almost all but specially the inflate and the draw2 brushes to fix the hole. Then you can explore using the other brushes.
▪ Exploring 3D modeling 🔎
Body Visualizer is easy to use and a fast way to make a 3D model with some parameters, so I was playing a little with this 3D tool to get the female body. Also I tried the same with BIO Human that is a 3D mannequin generator easy to follow and here you are able to free download your avatar (I downloaded the model in .stl but I couldn’t open it in any software).
After that, I wanted to use Magic Poser. This time I got inspired in this amazing artist called Lindsey Stirling who is an stunning violinist. First, I wanted to know how to use this program. It is really interesting, it’s like playing with dolls, but here you can move every articulation, make rotations and put the part of the body just like you want. Finally, I got this ⬇️
▪ Week's outcomes and learning 📌
This days I was really interested in exploring many of the resources that was given to us at classes and I was really happy to be back at the FabLab, I really enjoy to spend my time there (even if I were there only for few hours). Before completing this assigment, I spent a lot of time having fun with the different programs. Then I focused my attention in the week project, and the software I liked mostly is MakeHuman, so I wanna keep making other models and also I think it's a great tool to use for mi career, because many times I need to find a human model which I can use in my projects and since now I can stop looking for the perfect one because now I can make a human model by myself!.