MakeUseOf: What Is OpenAI’s Shap-E, and What Can It Do?. “In May 2023, Alex Nichol and Heewon Jun, OpenAI researchers and contributors, released a paper announcing Shap-E, the company’s latest innovation. Shap-E is a new tool trained on a massive dataset of paired 3D images and text that can generate 3D models from text or images. It is similar to DALL-E, which can create 2D images from text, but Shap-E produces 3D assets.”
Dartmouth College: Interactive 3D Model Recreates Old Man of the Mountain. “Twenty years after the Old Man of the Mountain collapsed, people around the world will now be able to explore the iconic symbol of New Hampshire through an online interactive 3D model created by Matthew Maclay, a graduate student in earth sciences at the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies.”
WUSF: USF researchers create 3D models and virtual tours honoring the legacy of President Jimmy Carter. “The researchers were tasked by the NPS to digitally scan and preserve furniture items that the 39th president built himself. They also created virtual tours of his boyhood home, farm, and depot that served as his campaign headquarters in 1975. The house in Plains where Carter and his wife Rosalynn currently live will eventually be included in the tour as well.”
Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Significant textile archive goes online thanks to year-long project. “ONE of the most significant woven textile archives in the UK is now available online thanks to a year-long collaboration. Called Weaving the Web, it means that the historic Sunny Bank Mills Archive can now be viewed in 3D on the web.”
Engadget: Blender can now use AI to create images and effects from text descriptions. “Stability AI has introduced a Stability for Blender tool that, as the name implies, brings Stable Diffusion’s image creation tech to the open-source 3D tool. You can create AI-based textures, effects and animations, whether using source material from your renders or nothing more than a text description.”
MakeUseOf: The 5 Best 3D Scanner Apps for Android: Turn Real Objects Into Digital Models . “Have you ever wanted to turn real objects into digital models for use in your 3D design work? It can be hard to find the right tools for photogrammetry. Luckily, there are a few 3D scanning apps for Android devices that make it easy to capture object data. Here, we’ll show you the best apps out there—each with its own strengths and use cases—that will make it easier than ever to create your next awesome product design.”
Smithsonian Magazine: Hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Designs Were Never Built. Here’s What They Might Have Looked Like . “Despite his celebrity status, less than half of Wright’s designs were ever built. Over the years, some of his existing works have been demolished. But now, Spanish architect David Romero is using computer-generated models to see what Wright’s unrealized structures might have looked like.”
Creative Commons: Scanning 3D: Cultural Heritage Preservation, Access and Revitalization. “On 7 February 2023, Creative Commons will host a panel discussion on 3D scanning, preservation, access and revitalization of cultural heritage.”
Engadget: OpenAI releases Point-E, which is like DALL-E but for 3D modeling. “OpenAI, the Elon Musk-founded artificial intelligence startup behind popular DALL-E text-to-image generator, announced on Tuesday the release of its newest picture-making machine POINT-E, which can produce 3D point clouds directly from text prompts.” I’m putting this under Research & Opinion instead of New Resources because it’s early days for this software. This is maybe an alpha version.
Hindustan Times: C-DAC Pune to develop ‘virtual walk through’ for Raigad fort. “In a bid to provide a virtual tour of the historic Raigad fort, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune has begun work in collaboration with the state government to digitise the iconic landmark in Maratha history. … This will be the first virtual tour of any of Maharashtra’s forts, utilising cutting-edge technology to provide the public with a one-of-a-kind experience without having to visit the fort.” You can read more about the forts of Maharashtra here.
Indiana University: ‘Windows to the World’ brings digital artifacts to K-12 classrooms. “If K-12 students don’t have the resources to travel to Indiana University Bloomington’s campus and visit its museums, a new digital toolkit will bring items from IU’s collections to them. Windows to the World: Digital Artifacts for Global Educators, a collaboration between several area studies centers within the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, will help teachers incorporate items from IU’s collections into their curriculum.”
WMAY: ALPLM Now Offering 3D Online Renderings Of Artifacts. “It’s a new way to get an up-close look at dozens of artifacts in the collection of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. The library has now released an online 3-D gallery of around 100 different items, allowing you to get a full 360-degree view of the items, using your mouse to rotate the image and zoom in and out.”
University of Washington: UW brings field geology to students with ‘Virtual Field Geology’. “Juliet Crider, a UW associate professor of Earth and space sciences, first got a grant from the National Science Foundation to send a former graduate student and a drone to photograph an iconic Pennsylvania geological site and pilot a new approach to field geology. Her team has now completed a virtual field visit to that site, the Whaleback anticline, where decades of coal mining have exposed 300-million-year-old folds in the bedrock.”
The Verge: Epic’s free app that turns real-life items into 3D models is available now on iOS. “Epic Games’ RealityScan app, which lets you scan real-life objects and turn them into 3D models for video games or other projects, is now officially available on iOS as a free download after an initial limited beta launch in April.”
University of Calgary: Project digitally preserves former Indian residential schools in Alberta. “Of all the ghosts that weighed heavily on the shoulders of Brendon Many Bears as he worked his way with a 3D laser scanner across every inch of Old Sun Community College, it was those he encountered in the former coal closet that sat the most horrifically in the pit of his stomach. The tiny room in the former Old Sun Indian Residential School, on Siksika Nation in southwest Alberta, was easy to miss, hidden away behind a metal door in the building’s boiler room.”
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