3-D printing

[jnicholes]

I just realized that it is impossible to design it the way I hoped. Even if I do succeed at designing it, there won’t be a way to print it. It’s too irregular.

 

[jnicholes]

I found a way. It will work, but it’s tedious.

I’ve got to design and print each bone individually.

 

[azurbanclucker]

Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than just scanning it. In order to understand why, you need to know how the fossil was formed.

This is a compaction fossil. There was a big prehistoric lake 55 million years ago. There was a landslide, most likely, that caused the lake to be filled and caused a massive extinction. Everything was compacted flat. As a result, the fossils are flat.

My goal is to make a 3-D non-flat fossil, that would accurately show what the fish looked like in 3-D.

Scanning it would just make a 3-D image of an almost 2-D fish.

However, I can try. I’ll see what happens.

I'm not sure it would help, but the Smithsonian may hqve a model available for free download. They have scanned the whole collection and put up a catalog. I can look for the url when im home later today

 

[azurbanclucker]

Here it is. No guarantees but if you know the species of the fossil, they might have the model for download.

https://3d.si.edu/