This website has been archived.
See www.seanclark.org and www.interactdigitalarts.uk for information about Sean Clark's current artwork and projects.

3D Print of Alexander the Great using 123D Catch

Wed, 05 Jun 2013

3D Print of Alexander the Great using 123D Catch

While I was at the British Museum last week for the Neolithic Art exhibition I thought I would also try out a 3D scanning application from Autodesk called 123D Catch. It's free for iPhone and iPad and allows you to combine multiple photographs of a subject in order to generate an accurate 3D model.

Regretfully (but understandably) the Neolithic objects were not accessible enough to photograph in this way, but I found an ancient Greek bust of Alexander the Great that was perfect for my first go at 3D scanning.

The program was very easy to use. Simply take up to 40 photographs of the subject from as many angles as you can and upload to the Autodesk servers with the app. What comes back is amazing - a fully textured 3D model with incredible accuracy. You can see the results of my scan here on Autodesk's site (you will need to use Chrome or Firefox to use the 3D viewer).

I thought I'd then make use of the facility to request a 3D print of the model. I simply made a few minor amends to the model using their web app 123D Make and sent it to 3D printing company Shapeways via the 'fabricate' button.

A week later and I now have a perfect little model of the bust of Alexander. It's full of detail and is made out of a hard plastic. If I want to print it again it's available to me on the Shapeways server and I can choose to make it bigger or print using a wide range of other materials - including metal and ceramic. I could even choose to sell it for download - but that would be a bit much since I got it from the museum for free!

Everything seems to be coming together with 3D printing at the moment. The tools to make 3D models are becoming easier to use, there are a number of 3D print services available and the 3D printers themselves are becoming cheaper. I expect to receive my own RigidBot 3D printer in November and look forward to exploring the technology further. Friends should not be surprised if they get a mini model of Alexander for Xmas this year..

Author: Sean Clark