My original thesis was entitled "The Effect of Accurate Reproductions in the Research Environment: The Use of 3D and 2D Facsimiles in Replacement of Fragile Objects." Over the course of this semester my thesis has evolved to be entitled "The Effect of Accurate Reproductions in the Research Environment: The Use of 3D Facsimiles in Replacement of Fragile Objects." As you can see, there was only one change in the design of my thesis which includes dropping the focus on 2D facsimiles. 2D facsimiles were going to be create and printed in the real world; however, having a 3D facsimile in real life will include printed out pages and a 3D printed cover so I combined the idea. Physical 3D reproductions and digital versions on the computer will increase the object's accessibility and preserve its original form. The focus on digitization and 3D reproductions is still the topic of the thesis; the way it is described in the title is the only change.
Since the summer, I pictured my thesis as one that focused on making fragile objects accessible to the public in person and online. It is evolving through the connections I make. At first, my thesis was an idea formulated through research. It has now expanded to include the Construct, the Library Company in Philadelphia, the Cary Archive and Shawn Foster. These connections are allowing an idea to become a functioning project. Without their help and support my thesis would only be theory based and unable to make concrete determination on feasibility of reproduction creation for a small institution. Choosing the papiermache book has solidified my ideas. I will soon include research on the digitization of books. Similarly, my thesis might change after the first round of testing at the Construct. This week, I went to the Construct to start the tests for 3D scanning and found that the portable scanner is not good at picking up reflections but it is good for picking up detail. If I am able to scan the papiermache book with this scanner the next step is to determine the necessary level of resolution. If these tests do not exhibit the high resolution prints I desire, I may have to find an alternative 3D printing connection to ensure the reproduction can be used as an alternative to the fragile original.
Apparently, you can dust the object you're scanning with certain types of powder, to fix the issue of being unable to scan areas which have too much of a reflection. Obviously, that's not an option for a fragile & protected object, but I thought that was still pretty interesting.
ReplyDeleteI hope the scanning works well for you, and that you don't have to do much reconstructive work. When I was scanning the Kate Gleason bust, a little bit of subjective model fixing wasn't really an issue, but since you're trying to create a true facsimile, significant differences would obviously be problematic.