Recently the subject of 3D printers has been in the news.

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http://www.kurzweilai.net/building-a-lunar-base-with-3d-printing

Building a lunar base with 3D printing

February 1, 2013

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http://www.spk.usace.army.mil/Media/NewsStories/tabid/1033/Article/9576/honey-i-shrunk-the-dam.aspx

Honey I Shrunk The Dam

Posted 1/28/2013

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Reading more about 3D printing and having some e-mail conversations lead me to look into how you make the the 3D models that might be printed. One 3D printing company, Shapeways, had a tutorial on how to make STL files usingSketchUp 7.1 or later.

I dusted mine off and found that it exported 3D files in the COLLADA .dae format unless you had a STL plugin. The Shapeways' tutorial suggested that you could convert the .dae format to .stl format and check the 3D model for errors using (MeshLab and Accutrans3D). I checked out their websites and downloaded MeshLab. Accutrans3D is only free for a 30 day trial and then costs a few dollars. I don't know what I am doing so will wait on that. What else is out there?

Shapeways supports a number of applications and there was another tutorial for the Blender application. Look at that.

Now my head is in a 3D buzz after looking at various websites and I am trying to think of how a 3D modeling program could be used to show off what it might be like to build a lunar base. Do you use 3D printers on the Moon (and what kind) or do you make a film to show what is going on?

Having read the tutorial on Bender I thought I would check out its history. Why not get your feet wet and down load theapplication, it is free, and of course it would be nice to see what you can do with the software.

Now the fun part for you. Put on your thinking caps and look at the following short film productions. They are all around 14 minutes, took time, and people and money and are beautiful (some in sort of a strange way,)

- LRK -

Tears of Steel is a live-action/CGI short film by producer Ton Roosendaal and director/writer Ian Huber

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TEARS OF STEEL

http://mango.blender.org/production/tears-of-steel-download-watch/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R6MlUcmOul8

Tears of Steel - Blender Foundation's fourth short Open Movie

Published on Sep 26, 2012

"Tears of Steel" was realized with crowd-funding by users of the open source 3D creation tool Blender. Target was to improve and test a complete open and free pipeline for visual effects in film - and to make a compelling sci-fi film in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The film itself, and all raw material used for making it, have been released under the Creatieve Commons 3.0 Attribution license. Visit the tearsofsteel.org website to find out more about this, or to purchase the 4-DVD box with a lot of extras.

(CC) Blender Foundation - http://www.tearsofsteel.org

Duration: 12 minutes. Available also in HD and DCP 2.35:1, Dolby 5.1.

Age: Suitable for 12 years and older.
Language: English spoken
Production: Blender Institute

Producer: Ton Roosendaal
Director & Writer: Ian Hubert
Director of Photography: Joris Kerbosch
Composer: Joram Letwory

Starring: Derek de Lint, Sergio Hasselbaink, Rogier Schippers, Vanja Rukavina, Denise Rebergen, Jody Bhe, Chris Haley

Crew: Andreas Goralczyk, David Revoy, Francesco Siddi, Jeremy Davidson, Kjartan Tysdal, Nicolo Zubbini, Rob Tuytel, Roman Volodin, Sebastian Koenig, Brecht van Lommel, Campbell Barton, Sergey Sharybin.

Project funding: Blender Foundation,
Netherlands Film Fund, Cinegrid Amsterdam

Premium Sponsor: Google
Main Sponsors: NVIDIA, Hewlett-Packard Workstations, Camalot AV Services, BlenderGuru.

https://www.facebook.com/mango.open.movie (Facebbok page)
https://plus.google.com/112059823531133148949/ (Google+ page)

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.Sintel (code-named Durian) is a short computer animated film by the Blender Institute

- LRK -

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http://www.sintel.org/download/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ&hd=1

Sintel - Third Open Movie by Blender Foundation

Uploaded on Sep 30, 2010

"Sintel" is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate the free/open source 3D creation suite Blender. With initial funding provided by 1000s of donations via the internet community, it has again proven to be a viable development model for both open 3D technology as for independent animation film.
This 15 minute film has been realized in the studio of the Amsterdam Blender Institute, by an international team of artists and developers. In addition to that, several crucial technical and creative targets have been realized online, by developers and artists and teams all over the world.

www.sintel.org

snip

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This is the one I thought a bit strange but not much different than some of my dreams, oh my.

Elephants Dream (code-named Orange) is a short computer-generated short film that was produced almost completely using the free software 3D suite Blender

- LRK -

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ym5G8yUjM

Elephants Dream - Fantasy Animation HD 2006/Orange Open Movie Pr

Uploaded on Oct 4, 2010

Elephants Dream is the world's first open movie, made entirely with open source graphics software such as Blender, and with all production files freely available to use however you please, under a Creative Commons license.

The short film was created by the Orange Open Movie Project studio in Amsterdam during 2005/2006, bringing together a diverse team of artists and developers from all over the world. More about the project...

Source:
http://www.elephantsdream.org

snip

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This wasn't done with Bender. It too is short and Sci-Fi.

- LRK -

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http://vimeo.com/58429056

C is the story of Lieutenant Commander Malleck and her radical act of mutiny during an interplanetary cold war.

Watch the intro to the film: vimeo.com/56660860

Check out our website: c-themovie.com

Buy the Soundtrack: c-themovie.bandcamp.com/album/c-soundtrack

Behind the Scenes: wired.com/design/2013/01/kickstarted-scifi-movie/

1/30/13

When Derek Van Gorder and Otto Stockmeier decided to make a science fiction short about a mutiny on an interplanetary warship, they didn’t have the funds for CGI. They did, on the other hand, have access to the digital cameras that are part and parcel of any contemporary filmmaker’s toolkit. So they eschewed the digitally rendered graphics that are ubiquitous today, and instead set out to combine classic in-camera special effects with the advanced low-light filming capabilities of the latest cameras. The result: a unique science fiction vision for their film C 299,792 km/s, released yesterday.

snip

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So many choices to help us look up.

- LRK -