True 3D Clipart

[mountie1808]

If you happened to see the February 2008 copy of Sign Builder Illustrated, you no doubt saw "Kings of the Dimensional Jungle" article. Talk about incredible. Foamcarver USA pieced together the regular blue foam (that you can buy at lowes, home depot, and every other place for $20 a sheet as opposed to $400+j for signfoam), hand cleaned, coated with a hardener, and then painted. Now according the the article, the designers sent Foamcarver a model which they scanned and enlarged. My question to the group is this: Does anyone know of any good places for good true 3D artwork which can be manipulated on all three axis and then carved in their entirety?

I love the 3D sites like Vector Clip 3D and Vector Art 3D, but they're really meant for flat (relatively speaking) panels, if that makes sense.

Hopefully this will strike up a good conversation.

Mike

[Brady Watson]

Mike,
There is a very long list of links on the ShopBot CNC Resources Page (http://www.shopbottools.com/resourcelist.htm)

Foamcarver does an awesome job on the large full 3D stuff. There was a typo in the Sign Builder article - My company did the laser scanning for that project. (and I am not a Foamcarver employee either).

There are many, many programs, resources and methods for full 3D models. Without knowing exactly what you are looking to do, it's hard to point you in a direction besides the resource link above.

-B

[henrik_o]

A typo? More like the journalist totally robbed you of your well deserved credit. I hate it when that happens.


Anyway, the article can be read by clicking this link; Sign Builder Illustrated - Feb 08 (http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sb/sbi0208/) and going to page 66 in the pagination field in the top toolbar.

[henrik_o]

I don't want to hijack the thread but the loss of credit, typos or misinfo is just one of these things that really gets to me, and is the reason anytime a journalist is anywhere within 100 feet of me I will hand over an info sheet to them that states all the relevant facts of my company. Usually, they really appreciate it, and it cuts down on the idiocy (nothing like a huge article that should bring in good work -- and then they print the wrong phone number, website address etc).

Here's what mine looks like,


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[Brady Watson]

Henrik,
That's the nature of most journalism...in the USA anyway. I don't need 'credit' for my work...most people who do high-end 3D know who I am and what I do - but yes, it is nice to be published/mentioned. Foamcarver really did all the work and deserves every speck of credit they get. I didn't even know the project was going to be 'journalized' until I read it.

Anyway...I have a good working relationship with the crew at Foamcarver...and the fact that a journalist got his facts mixed up is no reflection on Foamcarver. It's all good as they say...Onwards & upwards...

-B

[beacon14]

Henrik - is your age - 31 - in metric or something?! You seem much wiser and more experienced than could be possible at that age.

[myxpykalix]

I have seen a picture of henrik and frankly that 31 might be in "dog years"...lol

[henrik_o]

Oh ye olde farts, you make a young man blush (or bark, I'm looking at you Jack).


I'd just say that enthusiasm is not experience and curiosity not wisdom, it takes time to make either of the first the latter, and yeah, I'm just 31. But I'm working on it


Anyway, to try to rescue the thread from my shenanigans, Brady rightly pointed out the sources on Shopbot's site.

I would add that there are several sites that act as middlemen between end users and artists, selling high end 3D models. There are also many companies that sell collections. These models are usually intended for architectural rendering, broadcast work, etc, but they are eminently usable for carvings. Google around a bit and look at what's available.

No, they're not 'ready to carve', but will usually machine very well after some minor cleanup in a good 3D package (normally reducing the Z depth). You can use MillWizard that came with your shopbot to machine them.

In this post (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/show.cgi?tpc=312&post=55543#POST55543) are some pics of a 3D model of a horse I downloaded as a freebie from one of the commercial sites. I spent 15 minutes cleaning it up in my 3D modelling package, then saved as a 3DS file and machined in MillWizard.

This was my first attempt at 3D machining, 9 days after our very maiden test cuts with the Shopbot.

[henrik_o]

One thing that caught my attention in that article was on page 68;

quote:
Foamcarver painted the pieces in its shop using acrylic paints and a Wagner painter sprayer. "There was no overspray," explains Meggitt. "We just laid some plastic down around the piece, sprayed it, and moved it."


That sounds nice. Anyone know more about that specific brand system, or if its a characteristic of a more general type of system?

[mountie1808]

The wagner paint sprayer is a general house painting system available at someplace like home depot or lowes. It doesn't require a compressor and just draws straight out of the can.

Getting back to the topic, when foamcarvers cut the faces, how did they do it? I mean, I know they cut it in blocks and then pieced it together , but which way did they cut it?? Looking straight at it, I would assume that they cut the sections on the YZ axis and built the image forward (as opposed to cutting on the XY axis and building the image upwards.) And then, would they have cut each individual face/detail alone, piece them together to get the multi-dimensional planes, and then coerce them to fit together by hand? Any thoughts?

Mike

[artisan]

Hi Michael....I've been doing this type of work for many years now.....long before automated slicing routines were available. We generally slice large objects into 3 inch horizontal slices for the Bot and glue them together in various ways....depending on the project and the strength needed. If you will search "Foam" and "Slicing" in the archives, there are many posts by myself and others from years past. We have developed software routines now that cut hours and days off the process. We welcome folks like Brady and Foamcarvers to the business and enjoy seeing their excellent work....D


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