Project Shellter - Turritella

cults3d

Back in the day, when groundbreaking albums like "Paul's Boutique" by the Beastie Boys hit the airwaves, researcher M. B. Cortie was busy creating another masterpiece - "Models for Mollusc Shell Shape." In it, a 16-parameter mathematical model for synthetic seashells was described, along with thoughtful parameters for many species of molluscs in the appendix. This is one of them. Modeled on the shell of the Turritella communis sea snail, found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritella_communis, will Purple Pincher hermit crabs thrive in this environment? Only experimentation can provide the answer! The creation was made possible using Maya's shellNode plugin, which is based on Cortie's model, and thickened with Blender's Solidify modifier at http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-256-beta/solidify-modifier/. The goal was to establish a workflow using open-source tools, but this shell surface required the use of a commercial tool. Cortie's model and many of its resulting shells have been implemented in Maple at http://www.maplesoft.com/applications/view.aspx?SID=3851&view=html. Porting them to Sage is the final step in creating a complete open-source workflow. Anyone up for the challenge? Follow Project Shellter's progress here: http://projectshellter.com, http://twitter.com/ProjectShellter, http://bit.ly/ProjectShellter, http://bit.ly/ProjectShellterCams, and http://bit.ly/ProjectShellterVideos.