2. Digital bodies

Research & Ideation

Mark Jenkins

I've always loved the work of street artist Mark Jenkins. Using the city as his theatre, Mark sets up life-like mannequins in public spaces. Mark is interested on how these life like sculptures are received by people passing by. Using tape, Mark creates body casts of people in static poses so that the viewer doesn't immediately know the sculpture is not a living person.

Technical Research

This was a great tutorial on using Deepnest by Panthera Press (Danielle Wethington) that teaches you how to lay out your final pattern before laser cutting. I played around with it a bit but ultimately AutoCad was a better option for my custome sized materials. I will proably look into Deepnest again when I'm cutting something from a material of one uniform size.

Deepnest Video Deepnest Tutorial

3D Scanning

While I decided to go the Make Human/ Blender route for acquiring my model, I did get a change to play with the Artec 3D Scanner. This is a scan I did of Annie's legs.

I learned a few things in the process.

1. The object you are scanning needs to be as stationary as possible.
2. Only the scanner should move.
3. It's ideal to work in a spiral motion from the top of the object, working your way down.
4. Alternatively, if you keep the scanner stationary, you can place the object on a rotating surface (like a lazy Susan), which also captures the scan relatively well.
5. You need to do 3 or 4 scans from different angles to get the best results. You can compile all your scans to give your software the most filled-out version possible.

This was a tutorial I watched by 3d Forensics to get me going. It covers different types of scanners, your basic set up and how to navigate the interface.

Watch on YouTube

Process and Workflow

Stages 1 & 2 - Modelling in MakeHuman + Blender

1. My idea was to make a bust that I could theoretically use for my personal tailoring projects. I also knew I wanted shelves or crevices to store some of my sewing supplies.
2. So I started by taking my own measurements.
3. The next thing I did was open the MakeHuman App.
4. I created a human using the measurements tab and going through the body category list.
5. I really had to keep an eye on the sliders because I found they tended to change on me, so before I outputted the model I double-checked everything.
6. I also realized when I was setting up the human, despite the measurements I input, it was still important to select fairly accurate settings in the Modelling> Main > Macro settings – things like age and weight etc...
7. Once I was happy with my human I exported it as an .stl file.
8. I then took the whole human into Blender.
9. In Blender I downloaded the BoolTool by googling it because it actually wasn't showing up in my Get Extensions panel.
10. Using a cube, I lined it up correctly with my body and performed a Boolean Difference command to slice the body into just a bust.
11. Then I took a final height measurement of the full bust so I could reference it for scale purposes in my other programs and saved it again as an .stl file.

Adjusting the Human Parameters	Making the Human	Making the Human Parameters
Blender - Boolean Difference on the Elements I Don't Want	Blender - The Final Model

Stages 3 & 4 - Making the Plans with Slicer for Fusion 360 + AutoCAD

1. The third stage was to then import my bust into Slicer for Fusion 360. For some reason the side panels were incredibly small!
2. Anyway, with the help of a magnifying glass I was able to read the panels. This is probably because the program is no longer supported.
3. I set up the proper laser bed size – in our case this was 17" x 29".
4. I like to use imperial because it's what I'm most used to but I think it did cause problems in Slicer which I'll explain below.
5. I then matched the height I'd taken in Blender to the height in Slicer, which was 19.35".
6. I had fun playing with the different construction techniques – I tried a few different options before I landed on a more sculptural bust with the radial technique and played around with different angles until I was happy.
7. The material I used was a .04 cardstock (in inches) that I measured using a special caliper used to gauge thickness.
8. So I input that into the thickness tab on the manufacture settings in Slicer.
9. Before deciding on the slot offset I did a little test. I exported the plans as a .DFX to AutoCAD.
10. Annie and I talked about making different slots of various sizes on two small pieces so we printed those first.
11. The winner was the .04 slots so this is what I eventually put in my slot offset tab in the Slicer manufacture settings.
12. To make matters slightly more complicated I was using scrap cardstock that had been pre-cut to specific sizes.
13. So for the final stage I measured each piece and drew them in AutoCAD.
14. Taking the exported plans (as .DFX files), I adjusted them manually in CAD to make sure I had enough material.
15. I had big-time trouble getting the slot offset to be accurate in CAD from the Slicer file. While the height and width of my pieces matched what was in Slicer, the slots were half that size!
16. I figured out that by actually doubling the slot offset in Slicer and re-exporting the files to CAD, this resulted in all slots being the proper .04 inches in CAD.

Choose Your Units	Choose Your Units Up Close	Playing With Construction
Gaging Material Thickness	Test Printing	All My Material Before Cutting

Stage 5 - Laser Cutting

Finally it was time to laser cut! Annie, my lab instructor, gave me a hot tip that if the boards are a bit warped you can help flatten them on the laser bed using tape.

1. First thing I made sure the fan was on! I actually found the cardstock gave off a lot of fumes which I'm not a fan of, so next time I might wear a mask.
2. Using my .DFX files I opened them directly in the Ruby Trotec Laser software without having to use Inkscape or another vector software.

3. With the cardstock on the laser bed I made sure all the pieces were going to cut properly by placing the laser at the top and bottom of my pieces on the screen and seeing where it wound up in real space on the bed.
   

4. In one instance the laser was actually falling off the material and I realized my material needed to be rotated on the bed! It was a good catch because I didn't have enough material for mistakes.
   

5. For the cutting I landed on a power of 100% and a speed of 2%.

6. For the label markings, I had to eventually take the power setting down from 50% to 25% so they wouldn't show up as dark. The speed for marking was also 2%.

7. Luckily I speak French so navigating the Ruby Trotec program buttons wasn't too hard but I documented them visually anyway if anyone needs to contrast and compare to their version of the program.

8. Finally all my pieces were cut.

Choose Your Units	Create Your Task	Set The Parameters
Set The Parameters	Choose Your Power and Speed	Choose Your Power and Speed
Select No to Restoring the Setting from the Data base	Send to Laser	Final Cut Out

Stage 6 - Assembly

1. Then it was time to assemble.
2. I love the Slicer assembly animation of how to put the pieces together. It was so intuitive so I used this as a guide.
3. Unfortunately, despite my tests, when I was actually assembling the bust, I found that .04 inches was actually a bit tighter than I'd have liked. It worked, but to make it easier I had to manually widen some of the slots on my final pieces with an exact-o blade to get it all together.

The Final Result

3D Models

And here it is - the final model on Sketchfab:

Download here