VR Development

Here in the Design Hub we are starting to work on projects that involve into Virtual Reality.

VR for short. VR is a new and still improving technology that is still in big business today. Everyday it’s improving and new technology is warping its ideas in the system.

VR Headset that is used can help someone see in the eyes of what is happening in the virtual world. Many VR company’s that are popular today are: HTC Vive, Oculus, Windows Mixed Reality.

Basically VR is suppose to help us see in a place we don’t see everyday. Some say it helps people to escape from reality we live today.

Other than games, VR has many purposes that can help people with their day to day lives.  VR can be used to help peoples health and give people experiences that they will never have or want to have like go to a unique place or somewhere around the world.In the Design Hub, we are working with 3 projects that are involved in vr.

Our first project in VR is called ADABathroom.com. This project is about viewpoints/ experience of a person who really needs it. We currently are measuring bathrooms from places around us that currently have public bathroom. Also we are going to model each and every bathroom that we measure and make. For this project. Then we will convert these models into a VR enviroment that can be used in VR. Then we will test these models and everything out by the experience that we put into the program to replicate what it is like to go to the bathroom by the experience. The on thing that we are still in development but has in mind is to add a log rating system so that we can know the persons rates on the bathrooms and also experience.

The second VR project is the “ Physics particle Collider “  this project is currently about very slow motion of high energy physics of particles and see how they can interact with one another. There are currently no educational vr models out in the market. So we have to create each model ourselves.

The third and final project is the Stem building project. Currently we only have the building for the VR. But we need to populate the building with items and people. But also we have to add other buildings surrounding it to replicate the ARC campus. The reason for that is to help indicate what it would feel like to have it in already built and surrounding with ARC buildings so we know how and what it would feel and look like in the college.

Collaborating with PRG

Are you a gamer or do you like games in general? Do you remember Phoenix Ready games in our last blog about them!?

Art by Artist Intern Erika Gonzalez

PRG known as Phoenix Ready Games is working on collaborating  with Design Hub. Daniel Todd the CEO of PRG other known as Phoenix ready games, but also a known ARC Student is working with the Design Hub by using there interns for their upcoming game Holiday wars and a new game that is in development at the moment. Many of the interns who have joined Daniels team are great with 3D modeling, 2D Artwork, Programming, and Animation.

3D Model Done by 3D Modeling Intern Jea Lee

You might of heard of them from a blog post a year ago when they were  working on Holiday Wars.

 Some of the interns that are working with PRG is getting paid for their work by the Design Hub.

Some of the interns who aren’t getting paid are working on their own time when they don’t have other Design Hub work to do.

Just like a previous blog post about Holiday Wars; Daniel and his team is still working on finishing up this project and getting the game ready to be able to play. 

The other game the company is working on is still in development and still in discussion with the team. Furthermore about this project is still in making and will be announced when the game is fully discussed and in programming.

Recently Design Hub have given Daniel couple more programmers to help them push out the game. These types of interns are going to be excellent to help them push the game out. These games in the future are going to be on steams store ready for people to play and enjoy!

Conversion of PLY file to STL

Katrina is an anthropology professor here at ARC. Is doing all 3D printing.

A femur bone, Known from our website if you saw the header.

So we the design hub have built a 3D printer for Prof. Katrina . She is responsible for the Anthropology of printing bones and studying the bones from dig sites.

https://www.britannica.com/animal/tarsier/media/583719/219537

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, ” Tarsier is a primate found in various of islands in Southeast Asia. They look like a lemur and a monkey combined. ” Picture from the site is displayed on the left.

In the Design Hub we have amazing 3D modeling students that can help fix any model that the clients need fixing.

Unlike Engineers who work with numbers, the artists can visualize and make decisions on what something looks like. they are able to look at many references in need if they do struggle in dire situations.

Anthropologists give really good data, which they are able to access a certain software.  This certain type of software is called “Mesh Lab” . Which allows us to access the data we need. Prof. Matt Stoehr and some modeling students were able to arrange the data for the 3D printer. Which she can go ahead and print  what ever she needs.

If there was any mess ups in the scanning process, the artists are able to clean up any screw ups that were left behind.

When Traiser was scanned it came out all pixelated squares. Which was the interesting part of it. But our artists were able to smooth and make the scan look what it should look like.

ARC Intern Chris Porter, A 3D modeler and animation student had worked with her on stuff like this right now.

Femur

Engineers built a long beds so that she was able to print larger scaled bones such as the femurs.

From there she will be able to print any bone, or even huge human femurs. It can even print the entire skeleton!

 

Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead. In this holiday focuses on the gathering of families and and friends in praying to remember family and friends that have died.

Here at the design hub we are working on a seasonal project for this special holiday.

The project began October 1 and will continue until November 2, when the Day of the Dead officially ends.

Photos taken by Angelique Doty

They are making a small scaled skull to sell at the bookstore for approximately one dollar per skull.

This creative idea was suggested by one of our amazing interns Erika Gonzales. Who thought of this project due to a previous project  “Bobble-head Project”.

The bobble-head project is about peoples heads getting scanned by the 3D scanner by the 3D scanning interns here at the Hub. Making it into amazing scanned heads for bobble-heads.

Photos taken by Angelique Doty

The project inspired the idea for this project to create skulls using the same method as the bobble-heads.

First, a full sized skull that Erika brought in was scanned. Next they 3D printed this life sized skull. Now, Smaller Scale skulls are in the progress of being created , Then painted by the Artist team.

 

The artist team consist of : Erika, Summer and Regan. 

Currently, the artist team is finding a location to sell these 3D scanned and printed skulls at any local Day of the Dead Event.

Future development from this project includes making the skulls into bobble-heads, earrings, and charms for people to make their own jewelry from them such as necklaces and bracelets.

Final step of this project is to paint and seal the skulls  in the paintwork with a special sealant that prevents any staining.  

Then the skulls will be all ready for selling!

Art Meets Science Here at American River College’s Design Hub

The Design Hub here at American River College is a strong proponent of multidisciplinary collaboration. At the Hub, team-building across all planes is valued and celebrated. It is a place where the arts and sciences come to eclipse, and the outcome is something truly spectacular.

Artist intern Erika hard at work. Photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

Here, we meet Erika Gonzalez to learn more about about her job as an artist for the Design Hub. Her current project: to paint the cell membrane models for the Science Department.  These little cell membranes required the help of Erika’s excellent painting skills, 3D printing, the Science Department, and 3D modelers to create the cell membrane structure. Erika is the lucky intern who was chosen to complete this project. ARC’s Science Department ordered the models of the cell membranes from Randy Schuster, the head supervisor of all the interns that make up the Design Hub. He has made sure to connect with nearly every department on campus, and runs the Design Hub in such a way that allows ARC’s campus to benefit from all of the hard work, talent, and innovation that comes out of the Hub.

The painted cell. Photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

The diagram of the model was sent from the Science Department to the 3D modeling interns at the Design Hub. They then transformed the structure into a file format that the 3D printers could handle.  From there, the files were transformed into printable structures, and were given to Erika to paint and bring to life. She had to paint each minute crevice in the same way as the 3D printed grain, paying a lot of attention to detail. She is painting the cell membranes with acrylic paint, then sealing it with Mod Podge to prevent the acrylic paint from chipping. This project will be housed at the Design Hub lab room 311, and it will be on display in the Science classrooms. It will also be used as a class reference for the Science Department.  The Design Hub is very proud of the collaborative efforts of our many talented 3D printing modelers, our artist intern Erika, as well as the Science Department. When art marries science and design, the possibilities are truly endless!