Blend4Web Model
This digital model of a physical reconstruction was created for Christmas 2015. It demonstrates how data can be re-used in ways not intended or imagined by the original author, and allows us to test Blender as an interface for navigating a 3D model and intuitively augmenting it with metadata.
Making Of
This model was not born digital – it was physically constructed from gingerbread, based on architectural drawings of the church of Our Lady of Asinou.
The gingerbread church was photographed and 47 images were used to construct a photogrammetric model in Agisoft PhotoScan.
The resulting medium-quality mesh was further decimated in 3D Studio Max.
The optimised digital gingerbread house model was imported into Blender, together with a terrain generated from real-world geodata of the area and several decorative scene elements, then exported for online display using Blend4Web.
Methodology
To construct your own gingerbread monument:
Working from photographs and elavations, draw simplified stencils of all visible elements, keeping in mind that gingerbread is relatively fragile as a load-bearing element and does not deal with compression or tension well – a scale of 1:1 is not recommended.
Recipe
Knead together:
- 300g flour + extra for rolling
- 200g butter
- 75g honey
- 50g sugar
- 1 egg
- ca 1.5 tbsp of mixed spices: cinnamon, ginger, allspice, pepper, and cloves
to make a stiff dough and allow to rest in a cool place for at least three hours and up to one week. Roll out to a thickness of 6mm directly on baking paper and use stencils to cut out the parts needed. Trim excess dough, leaving an edge of approximately 1cm to avoid spreading.
Bake for 12 minutes at 175°C.
Assemble using icing made from egg white, icing sugar, and flavouring (optional) and decorate as desired.