Saturday, February 09, 2013

3d Menander

I have been taking 3D scans of a few favorite coins. The image is of a drachm of Menander. Red/cyan glasses should be worn to see the image properly.

Last month I posted a bronze coin scanned this way and got no comments. I would be curious to know if any of my readers have tried looking at these images with 3d glasses. I have a bunch more scans, but I'm not going to post them if no one has the glasses.

5 comments:

Cultural Property Observer said...

I wonder if you can make a 2d or 3 d image out of multiple coins so that you get all the design details. For example, Syracuse had the best engravers cut dies for its Tetradrachms, but then cranked them out without much effort to ensure proper centering let alone flans big enough to capture the entire image. Wouldn't be great to see full images of Syracusian Tets in all the glory the engraver contemplated? If this is doable, perhaps the ANS could contemplate such a project, particularly since I understand they are updating Tudeer.

Howard M said...

I don't have red/green glasses, but I do have a 3d printer and it would be fine to try to make a copy of your coins....not sure yet if it is possible with from an anaglyph or not; am researching that.

Incidentally, the printer prints in plastic, so I am not talking about making fakes :-)

Kristina Killgrove said...

Just a suggestion: if your goal is to be able to "see" these 2D objects in 3D, you might try augmented reality instead of the old-school form that requires glasses. Check out junaio.com. One of my students is modelling a ship in this way; you can, for example, scan a QR code with your phone or iPad, then use Junaio to see a 3D model. It's pretty fantastic.

(Also, 3D printing really only works from a 3D model -- not from photographs stitched together into a model. We're having loads of trouble printing 3D photo models of inscriptions on our MakerBot.)

Ed Snible said...

Cultural Property Observer, you have an excellent idea. Someone has done this for ancient Jewish coins in 2D. I cannot remember where I saw it, but they reconstructions were very nice! The ANS is working on 3D. Sebastian Heath posted this first attempt as a video. He is using Agisoft PhotoScan, so will have real geometry, and could possibly print on Howard M's 3D printer.

A colleague of mine has recently purchased a 3D printer and I am curious to see what can be done with it.

Anonymous said...

Hi Ed, I tried with red and blue glasses then with red and green but I couldn't see it really in 3D, though with red/green it did look a bit clearer.
Dane (Helvetica)