Hi Twisty Puzzles fans,

Gear Head is a 3D-printed replica of a human head, cut in four slices and connected by a gearing system. The object of the puzzle is to turn the head back in shape. Getting three slices right is easy. The challenge is getting also the last slice right.

This puzzle was prototyped by George Miller on his FDM 3D-printer in 2005. I decided to put it for sale at my Shapeways Shop.It is less expensive than Over The Top.

Watch the YouTube video.
Buy the puzzle at my Shapeways Shop.
Read more at the Shapeways Forum.
Check out the photos below.

Enjoy!

Oskar

Very interesting... its basically a gear 1x1x4. May I ask why you printed it in this scale? It doesn't look like its quite 1:1 but close to it maybe. Could you scale this down to something 60mm tall and offer a more affordable option? Or does it need to be that size to function properly?

And I also like the idea mentioned in the comments on the video. It would be cool if one could submit their own 3D scans. I don't know of any easy way to offer a service like that but it is still fun to think about. I've got a son which will graduate from high school next year. A puzzle bust of him as a graduation gift sounds fun.

Carl

I can think of a way to do this actually. Using 123D Catch from Autodesk (Part of 123D, its free ) You can take pictures of an object from different angles, then convert that into a 3D model. then it would be a case of changing the head of the actual puzzle model, which I suppose would be more difficult.
Link to the program is here: http://www.123dapp.com/catch

Here you are.This is an old prototype from 2005, printed on the FDM machine of George Miller. The size of the teeth, combined with the resolution of the used FDM technology, required this size. At that time, the prototype cost over $3000 to George. Today, nylon SLS is both cheaper ánd better.

Oskar

NICE!!! But please tell me that was already there. If you were able to throw that together in the time since I asked the question I'll be very impressed though I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Do you have plans to prototype this one? It appears some of the gears may be just held in place by the gear's teeth which may be fine but I'm quite curious to see how this turns in practice.

Carl

Yes it was here since a week

Good job on that one Oskar ! I like your puzzles when they are 100% geary because I know those are way out of my league for now

Using my psychopathic abilities, I predicted your question and I started working on it last week. Oskar

Yes, you are a true psychopath and you have proved it by so mercilessly slicing up this head.

Wow, thank you for the tip. I made a lot of photos of a miniature Minnie Mouse (c) Disney, applied 123D Catch, did some STL repair and uploaded to Shapeways here, all within an hour time. I think this is very useful software!

Enjoy the photo and 3D scan below!

Oskar

Wow, that's one ugly Minnie

Hi 3D modeling fans,

Today, I did another experiment to create a 3D model using 123D Catch by Autodesk. The input to the process was this video. The output of the process was among others this 3D animation.

The Shapeways 3D model was made by perfomring the following steps.
1) Shoot a video by circling the photo model several times and making sure that all relevant parts are capture. The first shoot went wrong, as 123D Catch could not stitch the hair at the back of the head. This problem was solved by sprinkling confetti on the hair.
2) Use the Free Video to JPG Converter by DVDVideoSoft to extract 50 .jpg pictures from the video.
3) Use the 123D Catch software from Autodesk to create a photo scene.
4) Export the photo scene to an .obj file.
5) Do some cleanup on that mesh (filling up the bottom), using e.g. Rhino and MeshLab.
6) Upload the 3D model to Shapeways.
7) (And then buy and/or sell the model as 3D print).

Please check out the 3D renders below.

Enjoy!

Oskar