RobertoOrtiz
07-23-2004, 01:13 PM
Quote from the NY Times:
"A FEW weeks ago, a sculptor in France contacted Studio Roc, a new stone-milling company in North Hollywood, Calif., with the type of challenge the company was seeking. He had a 19th-century limestone lion's face that he wanted to reproduce for a line of fountains. But carving each face by hand was a tedious chore for which he no longer had the time or resources.
Instead, he shipped the original work to Studio Roc, where technicians mapped it in three dimensions with a laser scanner. Then they placed a limestone blank in a computer-controlled milling machine and used the scan data to carve a duplicate lion face at the touch of a button.
The result required some hand detailing, but that was exactly what the sculptor wanted. In about six hours, the machine had done the busywork that would have taken him much longer with a hammer and chisel.
"What energy does he have left after slaving for a week over one piece?" said Studio Roc's chief executive, Kenneth Kai Chang. "Now he can really get toward the back end, the finished look, much faster than he could before."
The limestone lion is an example of how technology is transforming the way sculpture, architectural elements and many other once-hand-carved items can be created or cloned. Scanners, computer-aided design software and automated milling devices are assisting sculptors and in some cases replacing them, creating detailed pieces from slabs of marble and reverse-engineering complex forms."
Link to full article (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/technology/circuits/22mill.html) (Reg Required)
Link with full description of tool (http://www.stoneworld.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,4046,65312,00.html)
-R
"A FEW weeks ago, a sculptor in France contacted Studio Roc, a new stone-milling company in North Hollywood, Calif., with the type of challenge the company was seeking. He had a 19th-century limestone lion's face that he wanted to reproduce for a line of fountains. But carving each face by hand was a tedious chore for which he no longer had the time or resources.
Instead, he shipped the original work to Studio Roc, where technicians mapped it in three dimensions with a laser scanner. Then they placed a limestone blank in a computer-controlled milling machine and used the scan data to carve a duplicate lion face at the touch of a button.
The result required some hand detailing, but that was exactly what the sculptor wanted. In about six hours, the machine had done the busywork that would have taken him much longer with a hammer and chisel.
"What energy does he have left after slaving for a week over one piece?" said Studio Roc's chief executive, Kenneth Kai Chang. "Now he can really get toward the back end, the finished look, much faster than he could before."
The limestone lion is an example of how technology is transforming the way sculpture, architectural elements and many other once-hand-carved items can be created or cloned. Scanners, computer-aided design software and automated milling devices are assisting sculptors and in some cases replacing them, creating detailed pieces from slabs of marble and reverse-engineering complex forms."
Link to full article (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/technology/circuits/22mill.html) (Reg Required)
Link with full description of tool (http://www.stoneworld.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,4046,65312,00.html)
-R