The president of CREA'ZAURUS 3D, Ludovic BLEIN, began feeding his passion for archaeology as a boy of 10 years. Today his company does full-scale models of dinosaurs for museums.
Increasing the dinosaur population in the 21st century: 3D scanning and 3D printing make it possible
The president of CREA'ZAURUS 3D, Ludovic BLEIN, began feeding his passion for archaeology as a boy of 10 years. Today his company does full-scale models of dinosaurs for museums. CREA'ZAURUS 3D needed new technology to accelerate their work-flow and to remove the practical constraints the company faced in recreating life-sized dinosaurs.
Your problem : how to create accurate dinosaur models quickly which pass scientific scrutiny? The latest scanning, sculpting, and printing technologies allow CREA'ZAURUS-3D to produce life-sized, scientifically correct dinosaurs for museums and collectors around the world.
In their search for a solution, M. BLEIN & Mme LANGIAUX from CREA'ZAURUS discovered Arketyp3D near Paris, a specialist who could advise them on the latest techniques and products to scan and reproduce fossils using products from Artec and Stratasys. Today, with solutions from Arketyp3D, CREA'ZAURUS 3D uses the Artec Eva scanner and the Stratasys Eden 500V 3D printer to accelerate the work of reproducing the ancient giants.
CREA'ZAURUS 3D's customers are museums and private collectors. Customers have a need for accurate, 1-to-1 size models from their fossils. Reasons for this can be very different. Certainly creating models for display in museums has long been done to protect the actual fossils. Countries, such as China, do not allow the exportation of fossils, therefore, scanned fossils are used to recreate the animals for study and expositions internationally as well.
A current project involves creating a full-scale T-Rex. The model is created part by part. Take the skull, for example. The fossils for the T-Rex skull are scanned. The parts are reassembled, the skin maybe sculpted on the skeletal model. The parts are printed and used for creating the final mold which allows the reproduction of the dinosaur for one or more sites.
The Artec Eva scanner is used to scan the model. It is fast, easy to handle, and scans fossils of varying sizes. The fossil scans are put together to create the volumes. The skin is sculpted over the bones using Z-Brush and care is taken in this way to maintain the scientific accuracy of the dinosaur. The sculpted result is printed on the Eden 500v and used by M. BLEIN to develop the mold for casting the dinosaur in the final version.
The ability to scan, sculpt and print the dinosaur accelerates the entire development process. For M. BLEIN the new tools remove the limits on his work.
The scanning & printing tools also support CREA'ZAURUS 3D in other important ways. The company is working in China where the law prohibits exporting fossils. The processes used by M. BLEIN & Mme LANGIAUX allow the company to produce accurate models for scientists and museums around the globe. Additionally, the ability to more effectively reproduce accurate models of fossils simultaneously protects the fossils and increases access to the fossils.
M. BLEIN currently sees more demand to go to the next step in this technology. Some fossils from his customers have the preserved organs and even the food the animal had eaten. Reproducing these fossils could be done using different material for the bones, organs, and preserved food. For CREA'ZAURUS 3D, this could mean adding the multiple material technology found in the Connex line of printers from Stratasys.
How it started :
CREA'ZAURUS 3D had surveyed the market for scanning & 3D printing solutions – or so they thought. M. BLEIN returned to his computer one afternoon resigned to select an ABS solution which was not completely satisfactory for his needs. Turning again to google, he searched for 3D printing dinosaurs and found Arketyp 3D. A call at 17:30 that afternoon led to him visiting the company the day after to meet with M. Lellouche. A discussion of the project and the possible solutions, aided M. BLEIN in deciding on the Eden 500v 3D printer solution combined with the Artec Eva scanner.
Between that first meeting and the installation of the solution, M. BLEIN travelled to the Euromold trade fair in Germany where M. Lellouche introduced him and the CREA'ZAURUS 3D project to Objet/Stratasys management. He saw first hand the latest products and technology including the launch of the Objet 1000 3D printer.
Technology :
The Artec Eva scanner is a hand-held device. This makes it easy to use for many applications. CREA'ZAURUS 3D can quickly scan fossils and create accurate 3D models for printing. The scanner allows scanning an object from any angle. When finished with the scan, the Artec software will fuse the scan data into a single model. This can be exported in multiple formats to programs for CAD, modelling, sculpting, and printing. The Eva model costs 13,700€. The Eva lite, which is the same exact model without support for textures, costs 9,700€.
The Eden 500V 3D printer gives CREA'ZAURUS 3D capabilities to print with 17 different materials, and importantly, with a printing envelope of 500mm x 400mm x 200mm. The Eden prints layers as fine as 16 microns and handles objects with complex geometry as can arise with CREA'ZAURUS 3D's work. In the future, M. BLEIN can chose to upgrade the Eden 500v to Stratsys' Connex technology.
Summary :
M. BLEIN has been using the new solution for more than 3 months. The Artec Eva scanner and Objet Eden printer have, in his own words, removed the limitations on his work.
Information :
CREA'ZAURUS 3D
M. BLEIN & Mme LANGIAUX
Web : http://www.crea-zaurus-3d.com/
Email : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it./
Tél : +33 7 86 17 58 41
Arketyp 3D
M. Lellouche
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tél : +33 1 43 00 05 28
