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.
Karl T. UlrichVice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
