A Successful Test Run

 

One of difficulties of this internship is finding a time when two full-time workers can meet in a COVID-19 world. The story the past few weeks has been one of scheduling conflicts, whenever my supervisor was free to meet one night, I had an obligation for work and vice versa. Emma and myself have slotted another Face-to-Face meeting for Tuesday, October 13 where I can hopefully start the work on the deliverable part of the internship.

I have gotten a good grip on all the software and hardware used in this process from taking the photos to create the image profiles, to using Metashape to render the 3D model, then to Meshmixer to make the model watertight and solid, and finally to load it into a slicer and actually print the model and handle and cure it properly. I am confident that this process will not take long once I get the artifacts to print as the longest amount of time was figuring out how to use all these programs and hardware. Emma has also reassured me that the FDM test models were printed. A potential future problem could be the turn around time on the FDM prints for the five artifacts. I would have to complete each 3D render and send if off to FPAN for printing, then meet in person once again to exchange the artifacts and FDM replicas in time to start writing the conference paper so my goal is to have a quicker turnaround time after Tuesday’s meeting.

The final step in the 3D modelling process that I spent the last week working on was taking the fully rendered model in Metashape and exporting it into Meshmixer which is a free, basic, modelling platform. I previously mentioned Blender which is a free, yet highly advanced program but ditched the effort as it was overkill and difficult to understand with the time frame and scope of the project. From here I took the model and separated many of the stray islands of data found inside the hollow model and deleted them so only one single continuous model remained. Then, with Meshmixer, I was able to make the model solid and close any gaps or holes on the surface of the model. From here, I exported the model into the 3D printing slicers and the model was good to print.

I did not print this test model because I have printed hundreds of models at this stage to know how it will turn out physically so there is no need to waste the resin considering there was a problem with the resolution. the final product lacked a lot of detail on the surface which was disappointing and this problem could have a lot of causes which makes it difficult to pin down. Could this be a limitation of low-cost photogrammetry and an issue with the resolution of the images? Could this be a limitation of the model itself that I choose, being that it is at a 32mm scale with a lot of detail? Could this be a limitation of Meshmixer or the exporting process? Or could this problem stem from a small step that I missed, such as exporting the texture of the model separately and working with that? These questions will have to be answered when I work with the actual artifacts because this model I choose is a very small and complex figure with lots of thin pieces, fine details, and sharp edges.

This is the final, yet low-resolution model. Notice the lack of detail all around the model.

This is the actual model itself that I chose as a test model because of its small size yet high detail.

This was the model finished in Metashape which bears more resemblance to the original than to the printable version which is what gives me so many questions.

Overall, I am happy with this internship so far. The first half of it I spent learning the software and hardware associated with it and these skills can all directly translate as usable skills for what I want my thesis to be on which saves me the time in the future with figuring it all out. Many people outside the history department hear the project that I am doing and glaze over it as they do with any conversation relating to graduate research, however, when I show the three test prints I have done previously they light up and become interested and want to handle and touch the replicas. This internship, and the concept of replication as a whole makes me excited because it is taking the past and making it a tangible experience for some where the deliverable is a product that can be held in hand which has even brought smiles to a few faces.