Francesco de Comité is an Associate professor in computer Science at the university of Sciences in Lille, France, where he researches the 2D as well as 3D representation of mathematical ideas as well as شاء. He’s provided papers on a range of topics including anamorphoses, experiments in circle packing, as well as Dupin cyclides. His present job includes modeling as well as 3D printing sea shells. He’ll be providing a paper on the topic at Bridges Conference in July. You can find his jobs on Flickr as well as on Shapeways.
Hackaday: one of your recent jobs includes producing fractal patterns as well as warping them into biologically-correct sea shell shapes, which you then print.
FdC: Modeling seashell shapes is an old topic–Moseley, 1838, D’Arcy Thompson beginning of 20th century. A seashell can be defined as a curve turning around an axis, while equating in the direction of this axis (i.e. on a helicoidal trajectory), as well as growing in size at the exact same time. This was modeled for computers in the ’60s by David Raup.
Drawing patterns on seashells was explained by Hans Meinhardt using a design of chemical reactions (activator-inhibitor), in the exact same spirit as Turing’s work on morphogenesis. integrating these two works, as well as utilizing 3D printers instead of 2D renderers, we can develop realistic seashells, either by copying existing shells, or inventing new ones. A 3D design is not just a juxtaposition of a significant number of 2D views: manipulating 3D designs can assist you comprehend the object, discover details, as well as so on.
I was curious to see if making a 3D seashell was possible. Moreover, I show that this can be done with simple tools — well, except the 3D printer.
Can you tell us a bit about the software and hardware involved?
All the process is done utilizing Blender, as well as the programs are written in Python utilizing Blender’s script facility. The 3D printer is a ZCorp ProJet 460, which utilizes a powder similar to sand, as well as which can output colored objects.
You mentioned D’Arcy Thompson’s work at the turn of the 20th century, in addition to Meinhardt more just recently — was it actually a situation of all of the math having been done for you already?
I have some math background, however I am more a programmer/computer scientist than a math scientist. In general, for all my works, I utilize maths already written by other people. when I have coded an equation, a math concept, I can play as well as tune its parameters, as well as see what happens. We might phone call this ‘experimental maths’.
What was the biggest surprise or revelation you encountered while designing the shells?
3D printing is not an precise science. I made some misses, however it enables me to cut a 3D printed shell in half, as well as see exactly how it was printed inside. Not precisely as I believed it would be. It provided me a much better comprehending of what my program was doing.
I’m reading (okay, skimming) Meinhardt’s book “The Algorithmic beauty of Seashells” as well as I noticed the author included fundamental code for a seashell pattern simulator. Was that old code an example of the kind of research study you had to equate into more “modern” formats?
This was a funny part of the project. In the 1990’s, the book was offered with a 3 1/2 floppy disk containing programs written in BASIC. The visitor was able to produce the patterns explained in the book, as well as test them with other parameters. recent versions of the book don’t contain this disk anymore.
Then I discovered that a library in a university in Montpellier, France still had the disk. I contacted them, they discovered a floppy disk reader, installed it on a computer, as well as sent me a backup of the disk. This was the very first part. I was not able to discover a fundamental interpreter to run the programs, so I decided to checked out the programs as well as equate them, very first in Java/ImageJ to test the patterns, then in Python, to integrate them in the python script utilized in Blender to produce seashells.
It is disturbing to see that programs written less than 20 years back are already difficult to use.
With regards to your work — not necessarily to nature in general — do the fractal patterns on the surface of the shell have a connection to the curvature of the shell?
There is no link between the patterns as well as the shape of the shell. it appears like those are two independent processes — however I am not a biologist! In fact, you have a number of possibilities for putting a pattern on a shell: mapping an picture on it (you think about the shell as a 2D twisted screen) This distorts the picture strongly. right here is Mona Lisa (image to the right).
A great deal of your jobs seem to include taking something digital as well as making a physical version. I can comprehend utilizing a digitallyINTERVIEW: FRANCESCO DE COMITÉ MAKES math VISUALLY remarkable (###) Francesco de Comité is an Associate professor in computer Science at the university of Sciences in Lille, France, where he researches the 2D as well as 3D representation of mathematical ideas as well as شاء. He’s provided papers on a range of topics including anamorphoses, experiments in circle packing, as well as Dupin cyclides. His present job includes modeling as well as 3D printing sea shells. He’ll be providing a paper on the topic at Bridges Conference in July. You can find his jobs on Flickr as well as on Shapeways.
Hackaday: one of your recent jobs includes producing fractal patterns as well as warping them into biologically-correct sea shell shapes, which you then print.
FdC: Modeling seashell shapes is an old topic–Moseley, 1838, D’Arcy Thompson beginning of 20th century. A seashell can be defined as a curve turning around an axis, while equating in the direction of this axis (i.e. on a helicoidal trajectory), as well as growing in size at the exact same time. This was modeled for computers in the ’60s by David Raup.
Drawing patterns on seashells was explained by Hans Meinhardt using a design of chemical reactions (activator-inhibitor), in the exact same spirit as Turing’s work on morphogenesis. integrating these two works, as well as utilizing 3D printers instead of 2D renderers, we can develop realistic seashells, either by copying existing shells, or inventing new ones. A 3D design is not just a juxtaposition of a significant number of 2D views: manipulating 3D designs can assist you comprehend the object, discover details, as well as so on.
I was curious to see if making a 3D seashell was possible. Moreover, I show that this can be done with simple tools — well, except the 3D printer.
Can you tell us a bit about the software and hardware involved?
All the process is done utilizing Blender, as well as the programs are written in Python utilizing Blender’s script facility. The 3D printer is a ZCorp ProJet 460, which utilizes a powder similar to sand, as well as which can output colored objects.
You mentioned D’Arcy Thompson’s work at the turn of the 20th century, in addition to Meinhardt more just recently — was it actually a situation of all of the math having been done for you already?
I have some math background, however I am more a programmer/computer scientist than a math scientist. In general, for all my works, I utilize maths already written by other people. when I have coded an equation, a math concept, I can play as well as tune its parameters, as well as see what happens. We might phone call this ‘experimental maths’.
What was the biggest surprise or revelation you encountered while designing the shells?
3D printing is not an precise science. I made some misses, however it enables me to cut a 3D printed shell in half, as well as see exactly how it was printed inside. Not precisely as I believed it would be. It provided me a much better comprehending of what my program was doing.
I’m reading (okay, skimming) Meinhardt’s book “The Algorithmic beauty of Seashells” as well as I noticed the author included fundamental code for a seashell pattern simulator. Was that old code an example of the kind of research study you had to equate into more “modern” formats?
This was a funny part of the project. In the 1990’s, the book was offered with a 3 1/2 floppy disk containing programs written in BASIC. The visitor was able to produce the patterns explained in the book, as well as test them with other parameters. recent versions of the book don’t contain this disk anymore.
Then I discovered that a library in a university in Montpellier, France still had the disk. I contacted them, they discovered a floppy disk reader, installed it on a computer, as well as sent me a backup of the disk. This was the very first part. I was not able to discover a fundamental interpreter to run the programs, so I decided to checked out the programs as well as equate them, very first in Java/ImageJ to test the patterns, then in Python, to integrate them in the python script utilized in Blender to produce seashells.
It is disturbing to see that programs written less than 20 years back are already difficult to use.
With regards to your work — not necessarily to nature in general — do the fractal patterns on the surface of the shell have a connection to the curvature of the shell?
There is no link between the patterns as well as the shape of the shell. it appears like those are two independent processes — however I am not a biologist! In fact, you have a number of possibilities for putting a pattern on a shell: mapping an picture on it (you think about the shell as a 2D twisted screen) This distorts the picture strongly. right here is Mona Lisa (image to the right).
A great deal of your jobs seem to include taking something digital as well as making a physical version. I can comprehend utilizing a digitally
