Pitti Tondo

thingiverse

At the Minneapolis Institute of Art stands a small collection of plaster casts dating back to when the museum first opened its doors. I was thrilled to discover that a full-sized cast of Michelangelo's "Pitti Tondo" was on display in an area normally reserved for special exhibitions. The guard who informed me about the tondo arranged access for a brief period, allowing me to photograph it so I could accurately model it later. Here is my model of Michelangelo's "Pitti Tondo," based on a plaster cast. How I Designed This I captured 24 high-quality photos with my Sony Alpha 5100 camera mounted on a sturdy tripod. The settings were precisely calibrated: ISO 100, f/8, using manual focus on a Nikon Series E 35mm 1:2.8 lens, which was attached via an adapter to my Sony camera. All photos were shot in RAW format for maximum detail. At home, I made meticulous tone and color adjustments in Lightroom, then exported the corrected photos as high-resolution 8-bit TIFs. In Photoscan, I used the 'Medium' setting at each stage of the process. Unfortunately, upon reviewing my work, I realized that I had neglected to capture the top or bottom rims of the tondo, so I imported the finished OBJ file into Meshmixer and extruded the rear of the tondo to create a flat surface and repair the missing areas elsewhere. Fingers crossed, the tondo will print with greater success than most of my previous models.