A couple years ago, I wrote a patch for sage, an open source alternative to programs like Mathematica and Matlab, to allow it to export surfaces as STLs for 3D printing. Since then, I’ve seen a few uses of it pop up. Recently, it has been used for something extremely awesome: Project Shellter!
A 3D Printed Hermit Crab Shell (source)
They’re 3D printing hermit crab shells! And the shells are being adopted!
A Hermit Crab in a 3D Printed Shell (source via makerbot)
As someone who kept hermit crabs when I was younger, I think this is awesome!
Makerbot has a more thorough blog post, with a video of the shell being adopted.
Advertisement
Like this:
One blogger likes this post.
December 22, 2011 at 22:59 |
The logical next step would be learning to make shells elaborately colored, and this is where Meinhardt-Klinger equations will come in handy:
http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/shells.sig92.pdf
- GeorgeG
December 23, 2011 at 02:34 |
Yay, it’s a George!
Also, ooh, pretty! And you could print them in shapeways coloured sand stone:
http://www.shapeways.com/materials/fullcolor
I need to write something to handle those coloured 3D formats though… I really want to be able to print Riemann surfaces to show of complex multifunctions! Log in particular.
In any case, it’s super awesome to see you!
December 23, 2011 at 06:51 |
Thanks for the support Christopher!
George, the paper you indicate was one of those informing the project. You may find this blog post on the project’s precedents interesting: http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2011/10/25/standing-on-the-shells-of-giants/
You can read all the project posts here: http://bitly.com/ProjectShellter
Go!
=ml=
December 23, 2011 at 18:46 |
You’re very welcome!
And the ending of that comment looks very familiar. Miles, is that you? I figured you were connected to this because it was so similar to the stuff I remembered you doing earlier… In any case, if so, awesome to see you! And to reiterate, the stuff you’re doing is very awesome.