I'd like to give you an update on the ice cream scoop example. Remember last time I created a foam model of the form that I liked and I was pretty happy with the overall form. The problem was that there wasn't really a practical way to actually cut the scoop in the, in the foam model and so I couldn't really try that scoop on ice cream. So I decided that what I would, would do would be to 3D print. Which is a new prototyping technology that I would 3D print a three dimensional model of the scoop, however to do that I needed a digital representation of that foam model. So I tried two different approaches, one approach was I used the product by auto desk that I believes call 1-2-3D catch and essentially what it does is it takes a bunch of photograph, you take a bunch of photographs and it forms a digital model from that data. In order to do that you have to provide some, a lot of visual information so that the algorithms can solve for the correct surface. So I just put a bunch of squiggles on the outside of the model. And in a minute, I'll show you how that came out. I, it, it didn't work as well as I'd hoped. And so, I then went to a more direct approach, which is, I handed this model to Dave Nath, to the, to the. Penn student who did those sketches that you saw in one of the later visualization modules. I handed the phone model to Dave Naff and asked him if he could create a digital model using the tools Rhino and Solidworks which are two software packages. And he was able to do that. And so from that he created what's known as an STL file, which are then sent over to a service called Shakeways that actually does 3D printing. Now I spent. On that entire process from here through to the physical model from Shape Ways. I spent about $300 on that. And I realize that for some of you that's a lot of money. And so you may have to find some help, some friends who have some of those skills or capabilities, and you can generally get those things done less expensively. If you're, if you're serious about commercializing. Some artifact. $300 is a pretty reasonable amount of money to spend to get that far along. I tried using the autodesk product, 123D Catch. It's very promising and really interesting and frankly, amazing that it works at all. But it didn't quite work for me to the level of quality I needed. So, what you do with 123D Catch, is that you photograph your product, your artifact. You take about 50 photos from a bunch of different angles and then the autodesk software automatically creates a surface model that is maximally consistent with the images contained in those photographs. And so this, this is an example of one of the photos this is rotated 90 degrees. But, but then this is the model that was created and the model is, is centered here a little bit. The model is, is close. But it's, it's not quite there, so here is the object, the model that was created from that image data and there's a bunch of extranious stuff obvious, the floor and so forth but it's, it's fairly impressive to see. What, what it actually produced, and let me see if I can get a good view here. So you can see the model, that it created, from those images. Not bad, and I, I bet that if I were to fuss with it a bit more, I could've gotten a better result. I tried it maybe five times with a bunch of different backgrounds and so forth, and I just couldn't quite get it to do what I needed it to do. And so I went to a more direct approach, which was to have, hire somebody to create for me a three dimensional model from the prototype. This is the model that Dave Nath created for me. It cost a couple hundred dollars to do that. and you know, I just paid him by the hour and that would be typical for what you'd, you'd would pay somebody to make. A model from drawings or, or a. Prototype. In this case this is a very tough surface to get right and I would consider this... A good surface for a prototype. for a production version I'ld want to smooth out some of these, dimples, and, create some some improved transitions. Nevertheless he did a nice job on this, and it was, he did it fast and relatively affordably. And, that's a fairly straightforward thing to get done. It's very hard to learn these tools on your own, if you're not. If you, if you're not interested investing in really having that capability for the long run. Here's what the Shape Ways user interface looks like. You simply create an account and upload an STL file, which is the file format for 3D printing. And. We can then, take a look at the model, as it appears here in shape ways. This is just as. The model as Dave Nath created it and what Shapeways lets you do is, is then simply select a material, and in this case I selected the so called white strong and flexible which is actually a selective laser centered nylon, I believe and. And then you add to cart, in this case it was $67.88 to print this material. And, I just want to give a shout out to Shapeways, they expedited the, the production and shipping, so I got in about five days. Okay this is pretty exciting. Those of you who've designed things and sent them off to be produced, know there's a little bit of magic in getting a box in the mail that has your artifact in it. And you open it with great anticipation to see how it actually came out. So this came from Shapeways. I, again, I want to give a shout-out that they expedited so that I could get this in time to show you. And, and let's see how it looks. Okay. Here it is. It's in a nice little baggie. . I like the color. The color is nice and white. And, guess what, it looks just like Dave's model. So that's a good sign. Let me see how it feels in my hand. I like the way the top surface is, is angled. That feels pretty nice. Feels about right. It actually feels pretty much exactly like my prototype. Like I said, I'd like to smooth out some of these bumps. I think that can be done if, if, if in testing this is promising enough I'll model it again, or I'll have somebody model it again for, for production intent. So I would say now this is pretty nice. And the scoop looks pretty functional. The only thing about 3d printing the surface finish is kind of matte. It's kind of, a little bit rough like a, like a fine sandpaper, so I may get in with a little bit of sandpaper and smooth that scoop, so that it, it works on the ice cream better when we go to test it. Alright, all that's left now is to give it to my son and to see how it works.
