A Walk in the Woods

In the first milestone I defined five options for objects to capture. I decided to go with ‘A Walk in the Woods’:

I grew up playing in the woods. It was always an adventure – new bugs lay under every rock and dirt could be molded into innumerable forts. I have gradually left the woods behind (as I imagine most of us are doing these days). My goal is to take a simple walk through the woods and record any and all interesting discoveries that I make. These critters, rocks and leaves would then be created as physical models to capture some of that excitement of discovery.

Captures and Lessons Learned

I have performed a number of captures now, some with great success and others with less.

I have a few pointers for capture:

• Lighting if important. Diffused light works better then a spotlight. Captures did well with just the microscope light on.
• The angle of capture cannot be too deep. The objects did best at 30-45 degrees.
• The object surroundings are very important as background objects help the software orient the images. Latter models all have orange clay bases for support and textured background.
• 30x magnification worked well for the objects that I had. Captures work best when the capture can see a wide range of the object’s surroundings
• Taking pictures at different focus depths came out well.
• The more pictures the better. I usually took 40-70.
• Shiny objects don’t do as well
• Small details like bug legs are rarely captured.

Here are some of the results (all models available on my 123D account):

Future Steps

The next hurdle is manufacturing. I am exploring two options. One in 3D printing in plaster. The d-fab on campus has the ability to print color plaster models.

I am also looking into 123Dmake which converts designs to layered models which can then be cut in something like cardboard. This would enable me to create some very large models.