Wednesday, May 28, 2014

3D Scanning for the Movies: X-Men Days of Future Past

Direct Dimensions employees enjoy seeing their work onscreen


Summer blockbuster season has begun! Earlier in the month Amazing Spiderman 2 opened and last weekend we had the chance to see X-Men: Days of Future Past.



Last year we took a large team and several scanners and digitally documented RFK stadium in Washington DC for the pivotal battle in the new X-Men film. You can see just a snippet of the stadium at the 1 min 40 second mark in the above trailer.

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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

3D Scanning and Modeling for Archaeology

We have a talented group of employees at Direct Dimensions who regularly accomplish incredible things, not just at work but also in their personal time: publishing books, creating art, volunteering for important causes, climbing mountains, making music, and even designing a RPG.

Heritage Scanning Specialist Joe Nicoli is no exception. He recently spent time researching and co-authoring an article entitled "Exploring 3D modeling, fingerprint extraction, and other scanning applications for ancient clay oil lamps." It was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Congratulations Joe!

Article Abstract:
Ancient clay oil lamps provide an invaluable source of information for archaeologists as indicators of ritual, chronology, clientele, trade, and origin. Since the late seventeenth century, they have been drawn, painted, and photographed for antiquarian and scientific publications. The purpose of this paper is to explore various applications of 2D and 3D digital modeling and laser scanning of ancient clay lamps using the Steiblicher Comet L3D Blue Scanner. It encourages widespread adoption of this method for the creation of highly accurate archaeological illustrations, 3D lamp typologies, 2D and 3D lamp documents, and museum quality reproductions. Most notably, this study confirms laser scanning as an effective method for extracting fingerprints from lamp surfaces to make possible the identification of ancient lampmakers. Order and read the full article here.

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Monday, May 26, 2014

In Memoriam: The Battlefield Cross


The tradition of using a rifle, boots and helmet (also known as the Battlefield Cross) to mark a fallen soldier's grave began during the American Civil War, perhaps as a replacement for a burial cross on the battlefield. Today it is used as a sign of respect to soldiers who have fallen.

A few years ago we had the opportunity to help create a memorial for Fallen Soldiers. We'd like to share some images of that special project in honor of Memorial Day.






 

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Friday, May 2, 2014

3D Scanning for the Movies: The Amazing Spider-Man 2



Guess who 3D scanned Times Square to help create special effects for the new Spider-Man movie?

While we've had the opportunity to work on some pretty awesome films (MIB3, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), this production afforded the opportunity for one of the largest and most exciting location scans we've yet done. To help create a major action sequence for the film multiple crews from Direct Dimensions digitally documented all of Times Square.

Oh yeah, we also got to 3D scan Peter, Gwen, and Electro. We'll definitely be at the movies this weekend, excited to see our digital data turned into incredible special effects in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.


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