The worlds of art, design, and architecture are colliding! 3D Art Night: Digitizing Reality

3D printed figurine of an actual human, by Captured Creations.

Last night I went to Captured Dimensions, a 3D scanning and 3D printing studio in Plano, TX, where a whole lot of 3D artists, computer game designers, as well as traditional sculptors got together to participate in a talk given by artist Bridgette Mongeon.  So what do all these people have in common?

Let me start at the beginning...

Michele Azzaro, who works for the company, has been telling me about this 3D technology her company has been working on for a while now, and it all sounded great, but you know how pictures speak louder than a thousand words? Well, they do!  I got an invitation from Michele, via Facebook, and the invitation had a link to a video attached to it.  I clicked on the link  and was absolutely blown away!  You have to see this... the possibilities are endless... but to start with, think of little wedding cake figurines which happen to be exact replicas of the actual couple who are having the wedding.  Imagine this: Captured Dimensions snaps a single photo of you at the same time, 81 times, from every single angle you can imagine, transports it into their 3D environment, and prints you, exactly as you are in that place in time!  Fabulous!  I just couldn't wait to see more!

On the night of the event, I was pretty much knew what to expect, but was further blown away by the capabilities.  They can actually take a hand-held scanner and visit your home to scan a sculpture you have in your backyard and print little replicas of it, or a full scale replica, or even a larger one!  They materials they can print in are also many, not only plastics, but ceramics, etc... 

Now imagine manipulating your own images in 3D, basically sculpting in a virtual reality, and printing your sculpture into the real world.  Technology and art are starting to merge together for sure... and now your'e starting to get the picture of why Bridgette, an artist who sculpts people and animals, was there...

Brigette Mongeon is an artist, sculptor, writer, educator, public speaker, a wife, a mom, and a grandmother!  Due to an injury she sustained to her hand, she was no longer able to sculpt, and since sculpture is her life, her husband suggested virtual reality.  Her injuries healed eventually, but by then she was hooked!  She is currently using the 3D world to explore her ideas, to show her clients what their commissions will look like before they are brought into the physical world, and she also uses the 3D printing and CNC/ROBOTIC technology to print the base of the sculptures she created so that she can sculpt on top of that and make the sculptures her own.  Imagine the time being saved by not having to weld rebar and apply tons of stuff on top of it to come up with the skeleton of the piece.  (by the way, I can't wait for her new book to come out next year... lots and lots of great 3D and sculpture tips and secrets in that one!... I got a preview and the preview was fantastic, you should really check it out)

All of this is very exciting for the world of art, and I will most definitely keep this in mind for my next large scale sculpture project... I know that I most definitely could have used this technology for this tortoise I sculpted, which was cast in bronze, but it's also exciting for the world of home building and interior design as well.  Check out this video of circular staircase stringers being milled out out wood!  Unlike having to build this on-site, which takes a whole lot of men power, not to mention the oopsies, this bad boy produces extremely precise life size replicas of the design created in the wold of 3D.

Since I am an ornamental ironwork and lighting designer, I absolutely love to use 3D technology to show my clients what their final projects will look like.  I've been doing this for just about 10 years; I know exactly how hard it is for clients to picture certain designs from a drawing on a piece of paper.  With 3D technology, nothing is off the table, depending on how far you're wiling to take it, you can pretty much accomplish anything.  Take, for instance, the photo below.  It's a quatrefoil gate design I put together on one of my 3D programs; wouldn't you say that it looks pretty real? ...all the way down to the finish.  I created it in real-world dimensions, so everything is exactly as it will be in our real world.  At this point I can superimpose this gate into a photograph of the stone columns it will actually fit in-between, and the client will see exactly what they will be seeing when the actual gate would be installed.  I put this particular design together for the purpose of hand forging, but since I have the file, I can now print little replicas, or actually CNC this design out of a single piece of metal.  I mean, how amazing is this?

Anyway, I could keep going and going, but this post would become extremely long... I hope that this has sparked your imagination and you'll look a bit further into the technology.  I know that I have a whole lot of ideas floating around in my head, like 3D printed chandeliers like this one, which I also designed recently for the purpose of forging in wrought iron:

If you have any questions or great ideas, please comment below.  I'm posting a few pics from last night below... Chat with you soon!  Izabela

So, what am I holding in my hand? A tiny 3D family portrait, of course!

If you don't know Breanna Cooke, you should!  It's such a small world!  I was just admiring the costume she she made for herself a few months ago, I walk into Captured Dimensions and what do I see?  A little replica of Breanna in her costume!

Brigette and I, Norman Rockwell style!

Inside the Photo Booth!

Imagine! All these cameras and you're 3D!
...and a whole lot of comic con characters just love to go digital!

Okay, one more fun thing before I go... if you have a $100 burning in your pocket and you want a really awesome business card, get a hold of Michele or Jordan at Captured Dimesions... I saw theirs yesterday and was absolutely in love!

In the first photo, I'm holding their card against the background of one of my paintings, and I took a picture of that.  In the second and third photos, I scanned the card with the app on my phone, and a 3D image appeared on top of the card, which I could actually view from all sides, based on how I moved the card.  I took screenshots of what was there... isn't it fantastic?

to do this, you'll have to download this free app called Augment to your phone or iPad... just go to your apple store or what not and type in Augment.

scan this image with your phone or ipad (you can print the image or scan it from your computer screen) and there you have it... move the phone back and forth and the image will magically rotate... it literally sits on your business card.

Have fun!