PiIoT - The perfect reading place #6 [tech]: Art-a-tronic, performing the new opera

Reminder

The name originates joining the two words Art and Animatronic. Based on an original opera of the digital artist Lorenzo P. Merlo, I have further processed the opera to make it animated. The final goal is to empower the image components of a visual-art image making it a series of solid parts linked together that can be touched as well as viewed.

The original: first changes applying image processing

The image below shows the original opera, a digital art by Lorenzo Merlo on vinyl surface

Accordingly with the artis we have planned the following modifications:

• Crop the image to reduce its original proportions to a square size 30x30 cm
• Monochrome image As the components will be 3D printed, we decided to adopt two colours only
• Catching the image essential elements the final one should be simplified due the limitations of the adopted production technology.

The image processing has been done with Adobe Photoshop CS5

Step1: cropping and color reduction

The 30x30 cm cropped image has been processed for colour reduction.

Avoiding a direct color reduction (e.g. with the Photoshop posterize filter) the image has been converted from full color RGB to 256 colours palette. Then a selective colour process has been applied manually to reach the desired details on a single colour layer.

Step 2: detail removal

Some too small details are impossible to manage converting the flat colour element to a series of 3D components:

• Hairs and eyes contour should be refined
• Lips and nose "pixelation" should be reduced

Note that developing every step I have collaborated with the artist. Our effort was to keep the essential image elements despite the drastic simplifications applied.

Step 3: optimisation for 3D printing

The image size is be 30x30 cm but the available 3D printer has a maximum printable area limited to 19x20 cm. To create the printable parts the image has been divided in four identical squares (15x15 cm).

Note that there are seven different parts as eyes, nose and lips will be moved independently.

Step 4: background optimisation

The image blocks should move inside a support. As well as the black parts has been optimised and converted in separate objects also the white background should be converted in separate objects. So the white parts of the background has been converted in single components. These are the fixed relief parts of the support, while the black components are the moving ones. The red colour in the image below is just to show where the white and black components will fit; red represents an empty space.

Step 5: extracting the image components

At this point every white and black component is on a separate layer. To manage the bitmap elements in a 3D environment the next step has been to extract Adobe Illustrator paths selecting every area of the image. The AI file format can be read as a path curve by most of the 3D CAD programs as well as the Autocad DXF format.

The image above shows how the AI paths appear when imported in Rhino 4 CAD program. The curves have already been converted in flat surfaces.

3D modelling the proof of concept

Before creating the entire mechanics to make the Art-a-tronic live I proceeded generating a simplified proof of concept including only the black components of the image. Every element has been fixed to a thickness of 5 mm. with the eyes and the lips more prominent than the hairs components.

3D printing the proof of concept

The rendered images with a lateral light the effect sounds good so the further step is to see if we can represent the same effect in the real world.

Some information on the printing parameters

• Filament: PLA deep blue
• Filament diameter: 1.75 mm
• Nozzle diameter: 0.4 mm
• Layers Thickness: 0.2 mm

The images below shows the results obtained. It is the worth to turn the page and move to design the mechanics of the movement.