Stretching Cat

thingiverse

Human: Designed after I 3D scanned a wooden cat model made entirely out of ABS plastic. I went ahead and designed this project by first obtaining the necessary materials, which included a wooden cat model that I carefully scanned to get its precise dimensions. Here's how I did it: Step 1: Get Your Stuff Together Get your hands on a wooden cat model and a high-quality projector. You'll also need a noise pattern picture and a camera. Don't forget to download VisualSFM, Meshlab, and Meshmixer – these are the magic tools that will help you turn your pictures into a 3D model. Step 2: Take a Million Pictures Project the noise pattern onto the wooden cat using your projector and take 30-50 pictures of it from different angles. Then, turn the cat around and take another set of pictures until all sides are captured. Step 3: VisualSFM Does Its Magic Run each set of pictures through VisualSFM to generate a good 3D point cloud. Don't worry if you don't understand what's happening – just let the magic happen! Step 4: Meshlab Does Its Thing Dump all the 3D point clouds into Meshlab and repeat until it stops crashing (which will be often, trust me!). Arrange all the point clouds into a single cat model that's mostly aligned. This is where things can get tricky – picture scans always return different orientations and scales, and Meshlab loves to crash. Step 5: Meshmixer Smoothes It Out Import your model into Meshmixer to reduce the number of polygons and repair any mistakes from previous processes. This will help you create a smoother, more polished model. Step 6: Print Your Masterpiece (But Don't Forget Supports) Finally, print out your cat model using ABS plastic. Just remember to turn on supports – trust me, you don't want to regret not using them!