CMU School of Drama


Saturday, October 06, 2012

3D-Print Your Own Ancient Art at Museum Scanathon

Wired Design | Wired.com: Last week, with the San Francisco Asian Art Museum closed to the public, Christian Pramuk baby-stepped his way in a half-circle around Standing crowned Buddha with four scenes of his life, using a DSLR to snap upward of 40 photos of the thousand-year-old stone sculpture. “It doesn’t need to be perfect,” he said as he shot. “You just want to make good photographs, is the most important thing.”

6 comments:

jgutierrez said...

This is a clear example of where technology is heading in the next couple of years. I like the idea that the printer could allow further research for historians by allowing them to handle ancient artifacts. Also, I think its great that the museum is allowing for this kind of study. What I like even more is the fact that they selected five items they thought would be useful. This shows their interest in furthering the knowledge of their exhibits and their interest in emerging technology that could helpful. As for the stage, this technology could do wonders. It would certainly make model making alot easier, but I feel that designers should be confident in their own model making skills. It will be interesting to see where this technology comes into the theatre.

seangroves71 said...

I just recently discovered 123d catch for IOS devices and it really is entertaining to just snap 20-40 pictures of an object and have it make a 3d rendering of an object. Once i discovered the app i probably made 8 different 3d renderings that day. it ill be interesting to see what some places might be capable of producing simply by creating a model via clay then capture it with a series of picture and be able to create a sturdy prototype or product for use. I just watched a video of 3d printing now also able to include displays and now capable of printing gadgets all in one.

Unknown said...

This technology could really put museums out of business. If I can print out all the views of an ancient Roman vase from home, why would I bother going to see it in the museum? At the same time though, this makes culture and history wide accessible to anyone with an internet connection. For theatre designers this is an invaluable tool. One could see ancient designs and shapes without having to travel across the country to a certain museum, or having to rely on a low quality, one point of view, google image search. Especially for those involved in making props, to see every detail and shape without damaging the item is priceless.

Matt said...

Here's what I like about this article. For the last 2 years we've been reading articles on the Greenpage about how Autodesk is trying to break into the hacker/maker/DIY market with their line of 123d products. So far I haven't found much practical use for them. Good to see that some simple and free software is able to help this museum catalog their work and offer them to the public in a format that is becoming easily approachable.

MONJARK said...

I really like this. I don't think people typically go to the museum just to see a piece of art, but rather, go to be close to that art, see the other research that accompanies it, and experience something more than a google image search. For that reason, I don't think this would be detrimental to the art world.

What I do think it does is gives an amazing potential to people to use 2D photographs to create a 3D object. There is so much use for this, and this is just one possible idea. I am glad the technology has come this far, and I look forward to seeing how it will progress.

Unknown said...

This is so awesome! It's such a cool idea to be able to photograph something and then be able to take home a miniature version with you. While this is very fun and cool to do in a museum, it would also be interesting to see how this would work out in the real world. Say, for instance, you see an ancient ruin of some sort and were able to photograph it and create a model of it, this way you would be able to take home a real-life model of it to study and work with. This all reminds me of the Hall of Architecture at the Carnegie Museum of Art, where Andrew Carnegie sent his team to famous landmarks around the world and had them make casts of statues and building facades to bring back to Pittsburgh so students could work with them and the public could admire them. Wouldn't it be so cool to be able to do a similar thing with your iPhone and a 3D printer?!