Recently Keely Heuer from the Art History department came to us here in the DFL to see if we could help with a project, we said of course. In the museum collection there is, a “puppet” from ancient Greece dating back to 500 BCE. From all accounts it is most likely a puppet played with by children much like the modern playmobile. To coincide with a lecture that will be occurring in March, Keely wanted to have some replicas of the “puppet” made: we were more than happy to help. Here in the lab, we took a 3D scan of the object using the NextEngine 3D scanner. From there Michael Gayk complied the scans using Rhino and Z Brush to clean up the model. The next step was taking that model and using FDM (fused deposition modeling) printing to get a finished product which could be cast out of a ceramic medium. The results of these steps can be seen below.

The original piece from the museum collection.

puppet during scan.

Scanned 3D model.

Model being printed

The next phase in this process is for it to be cast out of Terracotta by a former grad student from the SUNY ceramics department Allora McCullough. Due to shrinkage during the firing process of the clay, the model it self had to be scaled up by 15%. Seen below is the final scaled model printed out of PLA. Pretty sweet.

More to come when the casting is completed.