Turn Yourself into a Vase with SketchUp! (i.e. Making Revolved Portrait Sculptures from Silhouettes for 3D Printing)
You likely have seen the effect before: An image like the one above shows some shapes that look like vases. After a little while, however, you notice that the curved shapes that define the vases are actually faces - or more specific: the negative silhouette of the faces.
As it turns out, this can easily be accomplished in SketchUp. Turning these shapes into real objects is also pretty simple these days as long as you have access to a 3D printer, a CNC lathe or can browse the web, where you can order 3D printed objects from any of the vendors that I list on this page.
Follow these steps to turn yourself (or a loved one) into a vase:
1. Take a good silhouette picture. Then import it into SketchUp. For this first step, we will be using a technique similar to the one that I employed for the tree cutout component in Chapter 5.
2. On the exploded picture, trace the...