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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: August 21, 2016

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REAL LIFE NEWS: LOST STATUE RECREATED USING 3D PRINTING

by Hazed

Here’s another example of an interesting use of 3D printing. It has been used to recreate an ancient Greek statue which was lost in the 5th century.

The statue of the god Zeus at Olympus was one of the seven wonders of the world. Made of wood, ivory and gold, the 13m tall statue was lost in a fire at the Palace of Lausus in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

We know what it looked like from written descriptions and illustrations on coins. Now, using that information, a replica of the statue has been produced using 3D printing. The new version is just 1.8m high. It’s been made for the Millennium Gate Museum in Atlanta, Georgia.

Two 3D printing firms, Stratasys and 3DPTree, collaborated to make the recreation. They printed the parts in thermoplastics, using a 3D model that approximated the statue’s design. It took two days to print Zeus’s body, and another 20 hours for his legs.

Jesse Roitenberg from Stratasys explained how 3D printing brought the long lost artefact to life. “It’s not just for engineers, it’s not just for designers – it’s for art, it’s for archaeologists.”

Commenting on the project, Susanne Turner, the curator at the Museum of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge, England, said, “Often, studying the ancient world is like trying to put the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle back together – but you’ve lost the cover with the picture and half the pieces. Anything that allows academics and interested members of the public to be able to visualise and imagine what these lost things may have looked like is an extremely powerful tool.”

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36986434

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