02. Digital Bodies

Week 02 | This week introduced software/application methods to use as digital tools to complement the design process when referring to the human figure.

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Introduction

¹ _{Photo by Balenciaga Afterworld on " Video Game Balenciaga"}

Assignment

- Include inspiration and research on projects or artists that work with the human body

- Document the use of the 3D scanner and software to acquire a 3D model

- Document the process of repairing and/or manipulating a 3D mesh and slicing it

- Document the process of file preparation for laser cutting

- Learn how to laser cut, document the workflow including the machine settings, material type and thickness

- Upload your 3D file (STL/OBJ) and your 2D files (DXF/PDF)

- Build and/or assemble a mannequin or body parts

- Create a stop motion or step-by-step assemblying process and upload one picture (HIGH RES) of your mannequin (extra credit)

At the beginning of this week I felt quite overwhelmed with the amount of information and struggled to see how my interests related to this new topic. During the Digital Bodies lecture however I realised that I have infact been slowly keeping tabs on this subsection of design without realising it. When I was 17 and writing my personal statement for university and still figuring out what I wanted to do with myself, I came across designers who were experimenting with the human body and technology. Since having read 'I, Cyborg' by Kevin Warwick, it has led me down the path I am on now and opened my eyes completely to how powerful it is to be cross-disciplinary.

I love the quote that was mentioned in the lecture:

"Innovation occurs at the intersection of multiple fields, disciplines and cultures - Medici Effect"

Inspiration

★࿐࿔The Wider World!: ★࿐࿔

• Kevin Warwick

Kevin Warwick is part of a community who call themselves 'biohackers'. Biohackers use technology, drugs and personal biological experimentation on themselves in an attempt to enhance the condition of their body and mind. Kevin is known for inserting an electrode into his wrist which allows him to control external technology with his mind. He also connected his wife's nervous system to his own through a wireless connection in an electrode in her wrist too. This meant that they were able to feel eachothers emotions even if they were not in the same room together.

• Moon Ribas and Quim Giron

This couple are also biohackers and are known for enhancing their bodies to be more connected to the earth. Moon Ribas inserted seismometers into her feet so that she could feel the vibrations of the earth and convert this energy into movement through dance.

• Amy Karle

Is a bioartist who uses the body to explore what it means to be human whilst combing art, science and technology. She has created a series of garments based on anatomy which show representations of internal systems in wearable form. Each piece is designed incorporating a different method such as reality capture, 3D scanning, laser cutting and converting anatomical drawings into CAD. Another project saw her 3D bioprinting a human scaffold in the shape of the human hand which disintegrates over time. Human stem cells are seeded onto the scaffold and the intention is that they will eventually grow into tissue and mineralize into bone.

• Balenciaga Afterworld: Age of Tomorrow and Adidas Ozworld

These fashion brands have created virtual worlds for their consumers to view 3D scanned models wearing their new collections - they can even play in these worlds too!

^[1] _{Photo by The Austin Chronicle on "Formenting Evolution: Kevin Warwick and "I, Cyborg"} | ^[2] _{Photo by Adidas News on "Adidas originals introduces first-of-its-kind digital ozworld experience"} | ^[3] _{Photo by Amy Karle on "Internal Collection "} | ^[4] _{Photo by Balenciaga Afterworld on " Video Game Balenciaga"}

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Tools Used

• PolyCam - 3D modelling on your phone
• Skanect - 3D modelling using a proper scanner
• MakeHuman - create a human model with actual dimensions
• Rhino 8 - software to edit your models and prepare for laser cutting
• Slicer for Fusion 360 - to slice your models
• Mixamo - 3D model animation site

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3D Modelling

PolyCam:

Polycam is a 3D scanning software for Iphones which allows you to download the 3D models into a variety of formats such as ... Polycam also allows you to upload your model directly onto SketchFab. Remember to scan under the chin!

• Easily accessible app and downloadable files
• Fast and simple to use
• Can capture high quality close up scans
• Short free trial before you have to pay a membership
• Can bug out and create holes in the model or random mesh disparities.

Holly by hollyadamss on Sketchfab

Skanect:

Skanect is a 3D scanning software that we used to take full body scans of ourselves.

TIP!

When using the scanner make sure that:

• The lighting is not too dark otherwise the scanner will find it hard to pick up the object
• When creating a new project, the dimensions are correct for the object. For a body we used 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 m
• The subject is within the centre of the box, start scanning around the height of their hips.
• Move slowly to avoid the scanner going out of range and focus.
• Export as .OBJ for colour and mesh / Export as .stl for only mesh

When you have finished the scanning process and the model has been created on the software, click the "watertight" button and select "very low". This fills any holes that were formed in the process.

Export your file into the Fabricademy Cloud as a .OBJ / .stl / .3dm file so that it is accessible from your laptop.

I wanted to create my own version of the Balenciaga Afterworld models where they are presented in various poses. So the below video is one of the scans I took which I uploaded to Sketchfab. I could then access the embedded code to make it easier to insert into Gitlab. This allows for a more interactive way of viewing the model! Although, annoyingly the Skanect process missed out my feet and made my legs are abit out of proportion!

I attempt to animate this model too later on in this page wooo!

Fighter by hollyadamss on Sketchfab

• Good method to capture a full body scan
• Slow and you can't tell whether you have scanned everything you need to
• Even though the file was saved as .OBJ, SKetchfab rendered it with only one material
• Mesh can be very distorted, especially the face

MakeHuman:

Make Human is an open-source 3D software designed for the construction of photorealistic humanoids. It does not function on mac, so I had to use the class computers.

• I inputted similar measurements to myself which are shown in the picture below.

• I chose a pre-installed pose for the model so that the sliced mannequin had different levels and showed movement.

• I avoided adding any accessories or hair as I was planning to use this model for the laser cutting process. I decided I wanted to try and animate the models I had created so I added a skeleton as shown in the picture below. The skeleton helps in associating the joints to the model when configuring movements in the animation.

As before, export your file into the Fabricademy Cloud as a .OBJ .

• Simple to use and can create a model with your exact measurements
• Helpful if you want to animate your model
• Unrealistic as it doesn'y capture natural differences in your body
• Does not represent ethnicities/genders/expressions accurately

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3D Mesh Manipulation

Here is a comprehensive diagram of the process required from creating the 3D model to laser cutting it, including the necessary file export formats.

Step 1: Export to Rhino

When you first import the file, make sure to repair the mesh by clicking on the "mesh repair" tool shown below on the top right left corner. I imported both my Skanect and Make Human models, where the Skanect model was considered a 'bad mesh' which was caused by the process of scanning the object and the quality of the scanner.

Check Mesh > Repair Mesh > Next

Step 2: Isolating the desired section

Ensure all 4 planes of view are open, I prefer to have at least one plane in the 'rendered' setting and the others in 'wire-frame'.

Place a cube in the scene making sure that it covers either the section that you want to keep or the section you want to cut out. This determines which 'mesh boolean' option you choose. In these models I chose 'mesh boolean difference' to remove the background in my Skanect model and to create a segment of the body in the Make Human model.

Export this file as a .stl into Fusion 360 Slicer

Here are the two other models I made in MakeHuman and Skanect after editing them in Rhino.

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Slicing

Using Slicer for Fusion 360 import the Rhino .stl file.

Step 1: Adjust the Manufacturing Settings

Our parameters were [in mm]:

Height:600 Width: 1000 Thickness: 1.5 Slot Offset: 1.7

Step 2: Choose your constuction technique i.e stacked or waffle.

Step 3: Experiment with the slice direction by adjusting the sliders.

This can drastically change the sheets and parts numbers so keep an eye out!

Step 4: Export the file as .dxf back into Rhino

This step is so that you can remove unwanted lines / parts in your file to reduce the laser cutting process time.

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Editing back in Rhino

Step 1: Import the .dxf file

Select 'ignore thickness' and open the file.

To remove all the unwanted lines in the parts 'lock' every layer but the annotation layer. You can then quickly and easily selected many unwanted parts at a time and delete them

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Laser Cutting

This was the first time I have used a laser cutter so I have highlighted some information below:

• Don't leave the laser cutter once the process has started incase a fire starts in which case you will need to stop the process by pressing the big stop button on the machine. If necessary use the fire extinguisher.
• Be careful what power and speed you set the laser to as this can also set a fire if they are not adjusted correctly. It is suggested to only increase the power and speed by 5 increments each time.
• Make sure that the design is fitted correctly on the page, I had a problem where the design had been shifted down so a few of my parts have edges missing.

Step 1: Tuning the laser

Place the tuning tool underneath the laser and adjust the head to the correct height (when it touches the 0).

Step 2 and 3: Importing the file

Open the file on the desktop app which is connected to the laser cutter. Drag the file from the 'Jobs' section on the right handside into the viewport. Make sure that the image is placed in the top left corner.

Step 4, 5 and 6: Checking the settings and cut!

Click on the material database on the top panel and open the paper > cardboard material.

I wanted the red colour to 'engrave' the annotaions and the blue colour to 'cut' through the material. This is created through changing the speed values.

• Adjust both the red and blue power values to 20.
• Adjust the red speed value to 50
• Adjust the blue speed value to 2

Make sure that the 'Passes' column has the value 1, this means that the machine will only go round each part once. Ensure that every other colour has the process name 'skip'.

Press OK and then Update.

Press the 'play' button on the right hand side to start the laser cutting!

Step 7: Remove the parts

Make sure to remove everything in the machine that is on the tray or that got blown to the back.

Review: - Lots of tiny pieces got lost in the laser cutter during the cutting process.

• Took a long time to cut compared to other people's models.

• Quite a few of the annotations didn't appear on the parts

• Next time i maybe wont change the slice direction as much.

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Mannequin Assembly

I realised that once I started putting the pieces together that I had only exported my slicer file and not saved it! I tried to recreate the sliced model but for some reason just could not get the angles right again, so I did not have access to the 'Assembly Steps' in Fusion 360.

Here is me trying to figure it all out blind! I first separated all the pieces into 10s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s then I separated them into their subgroups such as 10-1, 11-1, 11-2 etc.

I found assembling the arm very difficult as no shape looked right or very natural. Some pieces were missing or cut short too!

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Animation

I uploaded my Skanect fighter model and the MakeHuman model into Mixamo which was fairly simple however it took a bit of time to render. You can choose from a huge library of animated poses. As I expected the MakeHuman animated model came out alot better than the Skanect model due to the embedded skeleton and no irregularities.

Fighters from Holly Adams on Vimeo.

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Fabrication files

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1. File: MakeHuman Mesh ↩

2. File: Skanect Mesh ↩

3. File: Slicer Part 1 ↩

4. File: Slicer Part 2 ↩