x ray

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sculptor
Posts: 736
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:52 am
Location: uk

x ray

Post by sculptor »

Image
inflate of a (low res) bird xray (from a negative and a positive)

i thought this may be interesting to some users
but will take a bit of explaining :lol:


i was interested in a few fossils of feathered dinosaurs and started looking at xrays of modern birds. it suddenly struck me that curvy would be good for inflating x ray images.(they are made up of gray shades)

so i tried it :)

points of interest

1 - curvy can be used to get some interesting base shapes from x rays

2. there appears to be a direct relationship between the fact that an xray picks out the densest material and the fossil which seems to preserve densest material. So the curvy inflates are very like fossils.

3. it seems to suggest there could be some interesting results from inflating fossil images (that might show them in a different way)
Last edited by sculptor on Sat Mar 31, 2012 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Simon
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Post by Simon »

I love this direction - using natural images to make sculptures is very interesting!

If you upscale the image x2 (or x4) before doing the inflate it will look smoother.
sculptor
Posts: 736
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:52 am
Location: uk

Post by sculptor »

Image
curvy screen shot
Simon
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Post by Simon »

That is very cool - I'll have to search out some XRay pics to try this out on :)
Simon
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Post by Simon »

Tricky part was getting the background contrast strong enough to get a pure black to cut-out the inflated mesh. In the end I just painted it out and left the edges a bit rough. Adding the same height-map as a colour-map and bump-map helps reaffirm the forms.

Image
sculptor
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Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:52 am
Location: uk

Post by sculptor »

you've got a great result there simon 8)

the easy way i found for preparing the image was

1 auto equalize to get a good spread of shades

2 tone curve to push background towards black

3 then a sample /target balance(i.e. select the dark background and replace with black


here's the start of a dino reconstruction from an inflated fossil image
Image

the head/backbone/neck bone gives a great start in curvy
the leg bones will have to be pulled out from the body
(but you can see them there ready to be pulled) 8)
Simon
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Post by Simon »

Certainly gives an interesting starting shape - even if you end up dropping the xray texture and replacing with your own materials.

Selecting the background to fill with black is a good tip :)
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