It looks like the first part of your question has already been answered, but I’ll just chime in to say the 3D printing is perfectly possible.
I didn’t know quite how possible it was until I went looking for a cite, but apparently it’ll cost around $25,900 from these guys. Check out the Technology Video demo, about four minutes in after the marketing junk, it shows the printer running.
Probably still out of your price range, but in the realm of possibility.
If you’re really lucky you might find that someone out there already has a three representation of the falcon in an appropriate format.
3D printing will give you something the same shape as the falcon but I understand that commasense wants a real, honest-to-god metal cast falcon which, AFAIK, no 3D printer can do.
True, but the site I linked says they can print moulds from the CAD files which you can then use to cast the metal.
Of course then you’re dealing with molten metal and pouring and a new set of problems. But if you can afford a 26 grand 3D printer …
OTOH I agree with everyone else that commasense would be far better off just finding a student / teacher / bored sculpter and paying them to make a replica the old fashioned way.
Admittedly, I didn’t read that first site in detail, but I did say (not at all clearly, now that I look back) that you do have to manually match the corresponding points between frames, i.e. "Here’s the point of the beak in frame 1, here it is in frame 2, …). As noted in the quote, that’s a lot of points to get a good model. But once that’s done, the trig comes in to locate the relative positions of the points.
Where I certainly disagree is the statement that “curved surfaces are impossible.” Curved surfaces are a standard part of computer modelling these days, sometimes a real part of the model and sometimes just faked when it’s time to render. You won’t get curves absolutely accurate with respect to the object, but they will look as smooth as you like.
Speaking as someone who’s got a bit of experience in these matters, the best way to go is to have it done as a “lost wax” casting. The artist sculpts the falcon out of wax, it’s dipped in plaster, the wax is melted out, and then metal is poured in. It’s the fastest and cheapest way to do it.
The high tech method is simply way too expensive. You’re talking thousands of dollars to just have the thing designed and then possibly several hundred to have it cast in metal.
Curved surfaces are impossible with that program. In order to build a curved surface, you would have to manually specify the parameters of the curve which is amazingly tedious work.
BTW: It appears that my original assertion that all work has only been done on lambertian surfaces was incorrect. These guys have done some work on non-lambertian surfaces and this appears to be the only work done so far in that direction. However, reading through the paper briefly indicates that they are using a calibrated stereo rig and that their test data appears to be synthetic. It’s certainly possible to extend this work to an uncalibrated, single camera like what you need but it’s not a task for the faint-hearted.
It also appears that some of their previous work has been integrated into this company but it also looks like overkill for what your doing.
I hope no one objects to my reviving my own zombie thread, but I just had to post a link to this video in which my friend, Adam Savage of Mythbusters, describes how he did exactly what I wanted to do. (He starts out talking about making a dodo skeleton and gets to the Maltese Falcon about 6 minutes in. But the dodo part is interesting, too.)
And how did Adam, who clearly has access to pretty much any high-tech tools you can imagine, do it? He got a bunch of pictures from every angle, blew them up to full size, then got a lump of clay, and sculpted it by hand.
Just like GuanoLad and DougC and SpaceDog recommended.
Interestingly, he did talk about the laser scanner and 3D printer technology at the end, but you have to have access to the original object to make that work. They don’t let you create a 3D model from 2D images, the way I had imagined might be possible.
So I guess I’ll just have to call Adam, remind him what good friends we are, and beg, plead, bribe, or blackmail him into making me a copy. (Like about a million other people will now.)
Enjoy the video.
(I love how he actually bought a 1941 Chinese newspaper so he could have the right wadding to wrap the Falcon in. I never even noticed that the paper was Chinese!)
FYI, I just found that The Haunted Studios has created a really good Falcon replica (much better than the one they were selling four years ago when I started this thread), and you can even get it with replica wrapping, as in the movie. (Complete with Chinese newspaper!)
Since Adam wasn’t returning my calls, and my sculpting skills aren’t that hot, I’ve decided to buy one from them. My new dingus will be delivered in a few days, and I can get rid of my old crappy one.
Oddly, if you look at the statue used in the film, it can’t possibly be " encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels". Perhaps the eys, but the rest could not be, just gold (or lead) painted black.
In the book I know it is bejeweled. I would surmise that when Hollywood made it, they just had one of the staffers make up a falcon statue. He may or may not have ever known that it needed to be encrusted with jewels.
I always wanted to get one, and then make a duplicate where the feathers were enamelwork, and gem mosaicwork, gems for eyes, and various other parts, so that if it had been dipped in lead it would look like the lead version.
I’ve never understood why director John Huston would have used the dingus we see in the film and leave in the line about it being “jewel encrusted,” when there’s obviously not a jewel on the thing. If it were said to be solid gold, that would make it valuable enough, without any jewels. Perhaps we’re supposed to assume that over the centuries the jewels have been removed, but that would presumably leave all the settings that held them in place, not the sculpture we see.
I first saw the film some 35 years ago, but it wasn’t until I watched Adam’s video that I learned that Hammett based the Falcon on the Kniphausen Hawk (Adam mispronounces the name), a jewel-encrusted drinking vessel:
And tacky! Aesthetically, I much prefer the deco-styled Falcon. (And ironically, the famous original lead Falcon might be worth more today than the more obscure sliver and jewel-encrusted Hawk.)
The jewels are supposed to be covered over with enamel to deter thieves. That’s why Gutman hacks at it with a knife toward the end, hoping to find the jewels underneath, but when he doesn’t find anything he realizes it’s a fake.
Perhaps, but look at the picture of the Kniphausen Hawk and ask yourself how much enamel you’d have to slather on it to hide all the jewels. It wouldn’t even look like a bird anymore.
I’ve always assumed that the enamel was to cover the gold, and that when he says, “Fake. It’s a phony! It’s lead! It’s lead! It’s a fake,” he was expecting to see gold, not jewels.
Maybe you can persuade Adam to make one for you. It toured around the U.S. (along with a bunch of other junk from Chatsworth) from 2003 to 2005, but it’s back in Devonshire now. So it’ll be a little more expensive to go get good images or scans of it.
How can you not appreciate the sheer amount of work that went into making that … and it beats the hell out of all the little porcelain Lladro garbage. if I see another cutsey kiddy pappoose/afro kiddy and puppy/American Indian ‘madonna’ I think I will vomit. Pretty much the same with cutsey babies in leiderhosen/eskimo and baby seal/tom sawyer and fishing rod … I dont understand collecting dust collectors that don’t actually have real historical significance. [I have a hand carven and stained chinese KuanYin from about 1600, a cast bronze temple brazier dating about the same, they have research value. I cant imagine being able to do any sort of cultural research using an american indian and papoose as madonna and child - or at least get a correct set of data points…]
