One of my favourite sources of intricate 3D models is a company called Artec. They make high-end 3D scanners and show them off by uploading models to their web gallery, and to Thingiverse.

This past weekend, Thingiverse user Zomboe uploaded a more-easily-printed version of Artec’s Birth of Pegasus scan, and I decided to 3D print it.

It took about six hours to print the three sections on my MakerBot Cupcake, and required a bit of cleanup work to finish it. These are the main two pieces:

When put together, the edges on one side were not quite flush. So I used some extruded filament to fill the gap and then seal it with a solvent:

Finally, after some touch-ups with an exacto knife and more solvent, the piece is finished:

The original sculpture is by Alexander Bourganov and sits in the Moscow State Museum Bourganov House.

I did a self-scan & print last week, and wrote about over on the Ponoko blog. Here’s the short video I made to accompany the post:

I’m participating in the beta program for ReconstructMe, a real-time 3D model capture system using the Kinect. There’s not really anything I can say about the beta itself, but some new models were posted to the public portion of their blog specifically for 3D printing.

So here’s a quick look at the process I went through to make one of the models print-friendly, followed by a short video of the print in progress.

Model cleanup

The model is unclosed, with some holes in the top of the head in addition to the obvious hollow underside:

First I rotate the model inside of the bounding box so that “bottom” is the flattest potential surface:

Now I run the basic “fix part” tool in netfabb to get a closed model:

It’s not perfect, so I decided to cut the model off at the cleanest point:

Now exported and opened in ReplicatorG:

Scaled and rotated:

Now the slicing process. It took at least two hours using the default Skeinforge 35 settings:

And finally, FIRE THE MAKERBOT!

Printing

I’m really looking forward to capturing my own 3D models. :)

Here’s a quick rundown of some changes to my MakerBot and a few large objects I’ve printed with.

First, I printed and installed Zydac’s Z-axis Extender Kit, which allows me to print objects up to 185mm tall:

Next, after printing some large single-piece objects, I tried my hand at some large multi-piece objects:

This week I’m assembling a life-size Sword of Omens:

The hilt is done, but now the blade pieces need to be sanded, drilled, and welded with acetone.

Oh, and I’m a member of Site 3 (one of the local hackerspaces in town) now, and we’re having a silent auction fundraiser on August 20th. Come on out if you like parties and art and stuff!

Two sets of twisted shot glasses

• A keyboard joystick (sits on the numeric keypad)
  
  MakerBot – Keyboard Joystick (time-lapse)

  

• A failed skull print now used as a TTC subway token holder
   
• A bag full of mustache rings
   
• Attempted some Canada flag ear plugs based on this shirt
   
• Tried printing the waste output from a filament colour change onto some failed prints to make… I dunno, some badges or something
  
  
• A set of 4X LEGO minifigs as birthday gifts
  
• One more 4X LEGO minifig to keep, with blue Santa hat
  

• A glow-in-the-dark bottle opener
  End of the bottle opener print

• Duchamp’s Fountain
  
  Duchamp’s Fountain (time-lapse)

  

• Some Space Invaders and a Green Lantern ring with Maya
  
• The first three sections of a bathtub U-Boat
  
• A 2X LEGO Minifig
  
• A penrose triangle (still cleaning the excess strands off)
  
  Penrose triangle (time-lapse)

  

• A mustache ring
  Pink mustache ring (full-length)

  

• More bottle openers

  

• Some giant LEGO minifigs

  

• A pair of red Space Invader earrings (for when I go to a theatre and don’t want to glow in the dark with my normal pair)

  

I’m looking to upgrade to a Brutstruder in February so that I can do long prints (like the LEGO minifigs) more reliably.

Here are the four screens:

Commercial Data Systems was a small company based out of Saskatchewan so there isn’t much information about them or their games online. As far as I know there isn’t even a standalone Witch Way ROM available to the public. My copy comes from the homebrew compilation Mega-Cart but I do own the original if anyone wants to dump it or show me how.

I think the copy I had as a kid was corrupt in some way… As difficult as the game is, the reason I never got past level four in those days is because the floors were invisible! Also it was on tape rather than a cartridge. However I finally did a playthrough of all nine levels the other day and posted it to YouTube:

I’m interested to know if anyone else remembers this game.

Update 2010-12-25:

I’ve added box scans of Witch Way and Bug Spree (also by CDS) to this folder: http://www.techknight.com/vic20/

Update 2010-12-25 part 2:

It turns out that there actually is a dump of Witch Way, separate from Mega-Cart. It’s in the Gamebase20 collection.

First I created cylinders in Google SketchUp that conformed to my ear size. Then I modified an existing Space Invaders design to be thinner and smaller using MeshLab. Finally, I printed out the designs using black ABS for the posts and glow-in-the-dark ABS for the invaders and glued them together with plastic model glue.

No luck photographing them glowing in the dark, I’m afraid. Here we go, I used the tips on this site to photograph the glowing effect:

And a video of it printing:

Object source: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3550

What is the MakerBot?

The MakerBot Cupcake CNC is an inexpensive 3D printer for everyone. A 3D printer lets you manufacture small objects using melted plastic and a 3D model file that you’ve created or downloaded.

What can one make with it?

Pretty much anything up to 10cm x 10cm x 15cm. Large or complex items can be created by combining multiple small parts. There are some limitations to how finely detailed an object can be but advanced users have done some impressive things.

How does it work?

A 3D model is turned into a series of instructions for the MakerBot. The MakerBot then melts a filament of ABS plastic and extrudes it according to those instructions, building a physical object layer by layer from the ground up.

Where do the 3D models come from?

Some people create them using an open source tool called Blender. Most people (I suspect), download 3D models that others have created from the Thingiverse community.

How to buy one?

The MakerBot Store has everything you need!

Photos of some things I’ve printed

Videos

Here’s a time-lapse video of the Beethoven printing out. To see all of my time-lapse videos, click through to this YouTube playlist.

But when the GOTY version came out, my copy of PvZ was automatically updated by Steam without my consent. So I decided to make a patch that would get rid of the lame Disco Zombie and restore Dancing Zombie to his former glory.

Download

Here it is: DancingZombiePatch.zip

Usage

To use it, just extract DancingZombiePatch.exe and run it. It will default to pointing to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\plants vs zombies but should still work if you’ve installed into a different folder or aren’t on a 64-bit system or whatever. (It might only work with the Steam version, though.)

Obviously this is offered without warranty or guarantee that it will work or whatever else… And it will certainly stop working if the game is updated to a new version. Hopefully neither PopCap nor Valve will mind. (It’s really not cool to just change the files on someone’s computer when they’ve said not to.)

Video

Here’s a video showing the Dancing Zombie patched version of Plants vs. Zombies GOTY in action:

Screenshot

How the patch was made

The game assets are all stored in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\plants vs zombies\main.pak.

In the original version, Dancing Zombie and Backup Dancer are represented in the art/scripting assets as Zombie_Jackson (probably shouldn’t have used that name, guys!) and Zombie_dancer, respectively.

In the GOTY version, Dancing Zombie and Backup Dancer become Zombie_disco and Zombie_backup.

However, in the update, PopCap didn’t actually delete the original Zombie_Jackson and Zombie_dancer files! So it was just a matter of pointing the animation data for the disco dancers to the originals. (Luckily the original version was still on my laptop.)

To unpack the PvZ main.pak file I used a generic scripted extraction tool called QuickBMS and a script that works with PopCap’s PopPak format.

After modifying the resources, I made a new main.pak using poppak.exe from PopCap Games FrameWork v1.3.

Finally I used PatchWise Free to compare the two main.pak files and generate a patching tool.

I happened to look in the Game Room directory and see a big resource file earlier today. I figured that there might be some images in it that could give clues about future content, and there was!

First I checked for PNG headers files using a hex editor, then I used this Perl script to extract them.

In the image below, you can see that it contains a number of unused achievement icons (is that one with Pac-Man, Quick Man, and Air Man an achievement for “extra mans”?), new content pack banners, and strangely a picture of Star Wars clone troopers. Maybe that’ll be used to announce the original Atari Star Wars arcade game.

Check it out: (click for full size)

I’ll update if I dig anything else out of C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Game Room\common_d9.rkv.

The Xbox 360 Wireless N Networking Adapter also causes the same crash, and uses the AR9280 chipset according to this press release.

Reflashing the router firmware (both devices are still on version 1.0), changing the MTU, and updating the Atheros driver did not make the problem go away. Brian Tillman had some luck when he replaced the Microsoft-supplied Atheros driver with one from HP, but that didn’t work for me.

I ended up switching my Xbox 360 back to a wired connection and setting my laptop with the AR9285 chipset to use 802.11g and that did the trick. Not an ideal solution, but the WAP610N I’ve got going hasn’t crashed once since then, and other 802.11n clients have worked fine.