Artec: Gian Pablo, can you tell us a bit about the process of preparing a model for 3D printing? Which 3D printer did you use to recreate the Tarbosaurus skull?

I’ve been an early user of the Makerbot 3D printer, and am particularly interested in using it to print complex organic forms. Dinosaur skulls are especially interesting: however, due to intellectual property issues, there are very few good quality 3D scans of skulls available online. I was very pleased to discover the high quality Tarbosaurus skull on the Artec website, and set about printing a physical copy of it.

Artec: You can’t just take the 3D model and send it to the printer, right? How did you go about preparing the model for printing? Have you been using some kind of special program?

My preferred tool for preparing models for printing is Netfabb Studio Basic, a free download. Netfabb also offers a more capable professional version. This program allows scaling, slicing, rotating and preparing 3D models in a variety of formats, and is focused on 3D printing applications.

I opened the Tarbosaurus skull in Netfabb to start working on it, and immediately had a very pleasant surprise: the model was absolutely perfect, very much suitable for printing. Netfabb will scan a model for irregularities that will cause problems with printing, and highlight them. Most models that are not directly intended for 3D printing will show a variety of errors. However, the Tarbosaurus skull, and in fact, all the models from Artec, are completely free of errors.

The next step was to straighten out the skull within the bounding box. I was able to do this by rotating the model on the X & Y axes. The Makerbot has a limited print area (approximately a 4.5 inch cube), so I needed to slice the skull into segments so that they could be printed. Also, the skull has many complex details and overhangs, so I would need to print a “scaffold” to support it. Slicing the model into pieces would reduce the need for this support structure.

Artec: So, you had to virtually cut the 3D model into several parts?

Correct. Using Netfabb, I split the model horizontally into top and bottom halves, and also vertically into front and back segments. I made the cuts in such a way that any major openings in the model would be bisected, allowing room for support material, and making it possible to remove it later.

I saved each of the four segments as a separate STL file, using the Netfabb export command, and loaded them into ReplicatorG, the utility that handles printing on the Makerbot. I used the Move and Rotate commands in ReplicatorG to orient the pieces correctly. The preview screen shows the outline of a cube the size of the print area, so I could confirm that it would fit.

In order to print, the 3D model has to be converted into a series of instructions that instruct the 3D printer where to move the print head, and how much plastic to extrude. These instructions are called G-Code. I used this option in ReplicatorG, specifying options to print at high resolution (0.25mm) and using support material. I previewed the resulting codes using Pleasant3D, and everything seemed to be ok.

Artec: What kind of printing material have you been using? The printing process, how long was that?

I chose brown ABS plastic to print the skull, since it is close to the color of the original specimen. I loaded a spool of plastic on the printer, and started the job. Each piece took between 2 to 4 hours to print, without any problems.

I assembled the four pieces using cyanoacrylate glue, and presto: a very nice looking Tarbosaurus skull to call my own.

Artec: Wow! It looks like a true dinosaur skull from a natural history museum! Is 3D printing always that easy?

The process was extremely easy, owing in great measure to the very high quality of the model from Artec. It is rare that such a detailed and complex model is so free of errors, and so easy to print. Moreover, in the world of 3D printing, getting access to scans of the real world objects is extremely important, and it is good to see a company like Artec making products that work so well with even low-cost 3D printers.

Artec: Thank you very much, Gian Pablo! A great job you did there, indeed! We hope you enjoy your Tarbosaurus skull and, who knows, maybe you feel like printing more from our 3D gallery? In any case, we wish you the best of luck for all your projects!

Not sure, about whether Schiller’s Robbers is being recited in Namibia, but a chilled Krombacher is surely being drawn down there. We marvel at a language perfectly fit for “writers and thinkers”. We ski in Salzburg, escalade the Falknishorn and wander around Europe’s second largest seaport in Antwerp – hearing German all along.

To polish communication with our Germanic folks, we have recently translated www.artec3d.com into German. Pay a visit to our website here to get a bit of that “fantastisch” flair… and to read about our 3D scanners, of course!

Photo of wooden artifact

An Italian restoration company called Legni e Segni della memoria commissioned those findings to be digitalized. Their daily work is the consolidation and restoration of wooden archeological artifacts. In cooperation with the University of Salerno, they scanned the wooden parts in 3D. An Artec MH was used to capture the archeological remains of the Roman shipwreck. Scanning of the wooden part, which was about 1 meter long, took around 6 minutes. University specialists spent a whole day experimenting: they wanted to see to what extent scanning results differ if one of the wooden artifacts was wet, for example. It turned out that the piece soaked in water, reflected light from the flashbulb more than the dry piece.

Post processing in Artec Studio

After post processing in Artec Studio, the 3D model was then edited in Geomagic and later exported into a CAD environment for further study and manipulation. The University of Salerno purchased their Artec scanner from Abacus, Artec’s authorized reseller in Italy.

3D model of wooden part

Texturized 3D model of Roman shipwreck remains

Legni e Segni della memoria, the company who ordered scanning of the findings, will use the final 3D material to introduce a method of proper demonstration and cataloguing of archeological artifacts.

If you are interested in restoration and cultural heritage preservation, then check out how an Artec MH was used to digitalize religious memorial stones in Armenia. Click here.

To know more about the Salerno University’s scanning activity, feel free to contact the chief teacher on this project, Mr. eng. Salvatore Barba at sbarba@unisa.it.  

Brügge’s hot chocolate tastes twice as good while reading the latest adventures of our favorite Belgian – Hercule Poirot. Swiss Emmentaler does not rank behind in taste and lets some of us forget about the fact, that there is plenty of other cheese out there. Sitting at the bank of the Lake Geneva, we marvel at the Alp landscape around us. You soon understand that Charlie Chaplin and the maître Nabokov did not choose to live in Switzerland for no reason.

We watch and re-watch Amélie the same way as we read and re-read Jules Verne’s adventures, that inspires not only us here at Artec, but so many people all over the world! We hope that our Belgian, Swiss and French friends – alike many other francophone fellows – will enjoy our new website in French!

As we are continuously striving to improve communication with our clients, we keep translating our site into foreign languages. So, stay tuned for more linguistic news!

Votre équipe Artec

Chinese dragon model in 3D for Viewshape

As with many things in life, New Year’s celebrations vary from place to place: while the Americas and Europe party on December 31st, our Asian friends retrieve their firecrackers around the end of January. The start of the Chinese New Year depends on the appearance of the new moon and will be celebrated on January 23^rd this year. According to the Chinese horoscope, 2012 will be the year of the Dragon.

The dragon statue we scanned was about 25 cm tall and made of bronze. Holding a pearl, it represents power. Being of a twisted form with high detalization and generally dark material, this dragon is not an easy object to scan, though.

3D model without texture

To make sure we get a high quality model in color, we used two scanners – the Artec MHT and S scanner. First, we captured the model with texture using the MHT machine. Then we switched to the Artec S scanner to grasp all those tiny details. Scanning time was about 2.5 hours. Received scans were aligned in Artec Studio and all there was left to do was to apply texture onto the resulting model.

You can download this model for your iPhone from Viewshape.com. Viewshape is our free 3D viewer available for Windows and iPhone.

Want to learn more about how to combine two Artec scanners to increase detalization of your 3D model? Check out one of our latest success stories about scanning a luxurious fireplace here.

A year under the Dragon promises to be full of drive and business opportunities. So go get your pyrotechnics from the basement and celebrate New Year’s again – this time Chinese style!  

While respecting the past and reading Aladdin’s stories to our children, we aim for the future. That is why, we are proud to introduce our new Arabic website. We hope that this website will foster a closer relationship with our partners and clients and will bring 3D cutting edge technologies to an ever-modernizing region. 

Ueno Kigata, who purchased their scanners from Datadesign, Artec’s authorized reseller in Japan, has made it their business to create bust and relief replica for plaques, memorials and sculptures. The company facilitates the whole production line from 3D scanning to 3D printing in-house. Ueno Kigata uses Artec MH and L scanners to accurately capture objects, which are then either milled from wood or poured of aluminum. With all Artec scanners being fully portable, the company uses two ways to capture the original item. One is to place the object on an electrical turning table and put the scanner onto a tripod or hold it steady in hand.

With the help of the rotating platform, this Buddha statue of 40 cm height was acquired in less than one minute. Artec scanners align captured video frames in real-time, and Artec Studio, the accompanying software, shows in real-time what is being scanned. Another way to scan in 3D, is to take the L scanner and simply walk around the object. Watch how Ueno Kigata does it here:

Both the Buddha and the fox, featuring in those videos, were scanned for digital archiving purposes and to promote the work of the museum, they are kept in. The resulting 3D models can equally be sent to milling machines that produce replicas of the sculptures, from either wood or aluminium.

All those lucky ones who already own an Artec scanner can upgrade to Artec Studio 8.0^BETA for free until March 2012.

If you have an Artec scanner, click here to start downloading Artec Studio 8.0^BETA.

With this version scanning became a whole lot easier - you can now capture a wider range of objects with noticeably higher precision. To read more about the new features click here and check back often, as we will be adding more info as we go along!

IB-PROCADD, Artec’s authorized partner in Slovenia, was showcasing the MHT scanner at Forma Tool, an international fair featuring tools, tool making and tooling machines.

On average full body painting takes about two and a half hours with no limits for creativity. Its scanning process lasted no longer than 3 minutes, though.

It takes 3 minutes to fully scan a human body with an MHT, be it painted or not. Thanks to real time scanning, incoming 3D frames are aligned into a coherent model while recording. So that the audience could see the model being constructed as the scanner moved along the body.

Watch the video below to see how the Artec’s MHT performed at the Forma Tool 2011 in Slovenia:

Autodesc, Pixar, Adobe and Intel are only a few among many other companies participating at the CG Event. Visitors had a chance to check out upcoming trends, take part in different workshops or simply walk around the exhibition space and get a glimpse of the digital future. Listening to someone praising technological progress in computer graphics and animation is one thing, experiencing this progress for yourself, is another. What could be more intriguing than seeing yourself in 3D?

At Artec’s booth, visitors could check out the company’s products: fully portable, lightweight 3D scanners. Apart from looking at the devices, they had the chance to watch those scanners perform and step into 3D reality themselves.

With the scanner being very quick and easy to use, a great number of event visitors were captured with the help of an Artec MHT. All they had to do was freeze for a moment in front of the scanner’s lens. Right during scanning, viewers could see the 3D model appear on the laptop screen. The face was recorded in 10 seconds. Post processing in Artec Studio took one minute. As the MHT scanner also captures texture in high quality, the colored 3D model impressed all!

A lot of visitors wished to pose in front of the scanner, so that at the end of the day, Artec had a proper collection of face expressions in 3D: there were some smiles, a few serious looks, one or two grimaces and over a dozen curious faces. Highlights of this face collection will make it into the interactive gallery at Artec’s website.

With the help of Artec MHT scanners, the team created an atmosphere in which the impossible becomes reality.