Project – Recreating Michelangelo’s “Battle of Cascina” In 3D

When I saw the title of this news item: “Bringing Lost Art Back From the Grave via 3D Printing”, my assumption was that these would be projects that “filled” in the missing pieces of famous sculptures like the arms for the Venus de Milo. Instead this is a report on a project to recreate a Michelangelo painting that no longer exists; called the “Battle of Cascina”.

Turns out the original painting was never completely finished and then was destroyed by a jealous rival artist. As luck would have it, there are some of Michelangelo’s preparatory drawings still available. Also, some less notable artists made copies of the original composition; which can be used to recreate the painting.

An artist, named Mushogenshin, took on the project to recreate Michelangelo’s “Battle of Cascina” as individual 3D printed sculptures. Mushogenshin launched a kickstarter project that did not meet it’s funding goal. As a result he has been continuing the project on a part-time basis.

“I started preparing for the project, on and off, since May 2014 by shooting photo reference for anatomical details, employing a big turntable I built in April 2013. In mid-July 2014 I quit one of my day jobs so that I could dive into sculpting the figures.”

Source w/video: http://3dprint.com/28612/3d-printed-battle-of-cascina/

Digitizing the World

Imagine if 3D scanners were as common as a cell phone camera (or for that matter cameras and scanners integrated together). For beginners, 3D modeling would seem to be easier to become involved with if you had 3D renderings to start your projects with. Well, if your tablet or cell phone had a 3D scanner embedded you might be more inclined to start modeling the world around you.

Intel has been working on adding 3D scanning capabilities to portable devices with a technology they call RealSense:

“The idea is you go out, you see something you like and you just capture it,” Krzanich explained. He said consumer tablets with built in 3D scanners will hit the market in the third or fourth quarter of 2015, with Intel also working on putting the 3D scanning cameras on drones.

As a gentleman mentions in the comments, no word yet on the resolution. Still, this seems like a very important development. Making 3D scanning more common place can only feed grow in the 3D printing industry.

Source: http://www.gizmag.com/intel-3d-realsense-scanners-tablets-phones/33882/

Intel RealSense site: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/realsense-overview.html

Blender 2.7

Blender has released a new version; 2.70. Just like the application itself, most of the enhancements to blender aren’t of interest to me since my focus is on 3D modeling and not animation or game design.

What did pique my interest is the revamp of its user interface. As luck has it, I’ve barely gotten started with my learning curve. So, I don’t have a lot invested in the old UI.

The revamped user interface now comes with a tabbed toolbar, allowing users to organize tools into categories, while support for editing multiple buttons at once has also been added. The Transform tools also gain a mode for entering expressions and units. Other changes were done to improve lists, header menus, tooltips, buttons, menus and more.

Improvements to the modeling include:

The Laplacian Deform modifier was added to pose a mesh while preserving geometric details of the surface, and a new wireframe modifier allows you transform your mesh into a wireframe representation. The boolean modifier now supports ngons, and there are improvements to the bevel, screw and triangulate modifiers. The bevel tool now offers more control over the bevel profile and results, and the knife tool was improved as well.

At this point in my learning, the majority of the above went over my head. I was thinking of making a snarky remark about finally supporting ngons (because I haven’t a clue what they are). Turns out that an ngon is a polygon with more than four sides. The thought of applying boolean logic to a polygon underscores, for me, how much I have yet to learn.

I’m not sure if the 64-bit version is a new offering or not but I’m off to download it. If any reader is aware of a good tutorial for the new UI features, please share it in the comments… thanks.

Source: http://betanews.com/2014/03/20/blender-debuts-new-features-improved-performance-and-better-ui/

64-bit download: http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/21725-blender_64-bit