3D Scanning and 3D Printing
Europac3D was recently commissioned to 3D scan a small maquette of the famous animated characters Wallace and Gromit, as part of a project to create a 7ft bronze statue in the centre of Preston. The maquette was designed by Aardman Animations and depicts Wallace and Gromit in the 1993 movie The Wrong Trousers.
The task for the Europac3D team was to produce an extremely high-resolution 3D scan of the model, in order that all the original thumb prints and handmade artist impressions could be translated into the larger than life bronze statue. The Artec Space Spider was chosen for the job because of its high data collection rate of 1,000,000 points per second. This incredible resolution means that even the smallest of details can be captured by the 3D scanner and translated into the final sculpture.
The whole 3d scanning process took about 45 minutes to capture and then the huge data point cloud was converted into a triangulated CAD surface model or STL file using Artec Studio software. In addition, our in-house artists were tasked to add details such as the text on the newspaper which was prepared By Aardman animations.
The candidate model was then rendered using Keyshot software to help visualise how the statue might look when manufactured in bronze. This enabled, all parties such as Preston Town Council, Aardman animations and even Nick Park himself to inspect the digital model before actual production had begun. In addition to these rendered still images, the digital model was uploaded to Sketchfab, a 3d model visualisation platform, and given to Ian Banks of Atoll UK. Ian had been commissioned as the Public Art Consultant for the project by Preston Town Council and he was able to use the digital model for augmented reality visualisation in the proposed site for the installation. Using the camera of a smartphone or tablet the digital model of Wallace and Gromit could be placed virtually in position and walked around from all angles. This is a great tool to get a real sense of how the final sculpture might look like long before manufacturing begins.
On approval of the final digital sculpture, the team at Europac3D then began to work closely with Castle Fine Arts Foundry to scale and cut the model into sections that could be formed to create the final 7ft bronze sculpture. A mixture of milling and 3d printing was used to create the pattern pieces. Milling was used for the large smooth sections, while Europac3d 3d printed the more detailed, complex shapes.
The finished bronze consists of a full size but stretched traditional street bench where Gromit sits to one side reading his local newspaper. Behind, Wallace wearing the ex-NASA ‘Techno Trousers‘ first bought for Gromit’s birthday in the film, and tilted on one leg, offers passers-by a happy thumbs-up.
The whole project has been an incredibly interesting challenge and has been a great example of how the traditional expert knowledge of bronze foundry casting can be combined with modern 3d scanning and printing techniques. The two teams at Europac3D and Castle Fine Arts Foundry continue to push forward into new and exciting projects that perhaps previously would not have been attempted.
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