3D printing technology has a lot of amazing practical uses. But if there’s a fancy new material out, you can bet that artists are going to get their hands on it. That doesn’t just mean the fancy bracelets, sculptures, and other doodads that people are printing. While those trinkets are pretty cool, the artistic community has actually found a place for the 3D printer in their studio.
Image credit Amanda Ghasshaei
1) 3D Photographs
Photographs are generally considered to be 2D territory. That’s what they do, after all – use light to capture a two dimensional image of the three dimensional world. But that didn’t stop Amanda Ghassei from making some incredibly awesome 3D photographs.
Her program takes a black and white image and translates the difference between light and dark areas into three dimensional texture. The printed image is lit from behind, allowing you to see realistic shadows and shapes across the surface. Since the initial photograph was two dimensional, the 3D photos are meant to be viewed the same way, with an extra dimension of light and shadow coming into play.
If you have a 3D printer at home (or want to send a design off to a printer), be sure to check out Amanda’s Instructables tutorial. She’ll have you coding your own three dimensional images in no time.
2) Copies of Sculptures
Image credit Cosmo Wenman
Have you ever wished you could run your hands over an ancient Greek statue? In a normal museum, you can’t; all of those hands would eventually deteriorate the sculpture. But Cosmo Wenman thought you should be able to experience artwork on multiple levels, so he started making 3D copies of famous sculptures. He’s copied a bust of Einstein, the famous Head of Horse of Selene, and countless other works.
Cosmo visits museums and takes hundreds of photos of the sculpture he is interested in. He then a computer program to turn them into a three dimensional image, which he then prints. His hope is that eventually, art won’t just be something you look at in a museum – it will be something you can download at home, just like music.
If you want to see more of his sculptures and his process, check out his site. Just be careful – you’ll spend hours looking through his videos and images.
Image credit Art Daily
3) 3D Paintings
What material hasn’t ended up in a painting by a mixed-media artist? Loan Florea uses 3D printers to develop prototypes for the images he wants to include in his paintings. From there, he cures the resin and creates larger sculptures, which he then incorporates into a work of art.
Florea’s abstract art gallery is full of fascinating shapes and textures that you just couldn’t get with normal paint. Using normal materials, these paintings would be hundreds of pounds, but the artist tries to keep them under 100 pounds, if possible.
If you had access to a 3D printer, would you use it to make practical items or works of art? Or, if you had the time, would you try to blend the two?