Face Mug - Co Creator Glazed Ceramics

Hey

I've been tinkering with a new co-creator idea for glazed ceramics - a Face Mug.

Basically you upload any pic either a face pic , a text etc and it will be sculpted onto a glazed ceramics Mug...

Its a tricky co-creator... as different pics generate different surface heights and i will need to calculate a maximum surface area for the total cost...

samples - lets start with a simple text , black on white :




Your Kids face on a Mug :












Adult Face (your girlfriend, boy friend or any loved one) :











Finally God... ehhh Steve Jobs





Haven't decided yet about it , lots of work for a Beta material that might not be available, high printing cost , etc..


Any Thoughts?

Interesting idea. I wonder how well the details from the photos will translate after glazing, since Ceramic's description says "Low detail levels"? I would imagine the process may be better suited to logos or writing similar to your first render.

Actually i polished all the low level details and left only the 2mm and above, so the renders above are a theoretical reality in terms of after glazing looks.

Sure it needs to be tested in actuality.

This know-how has a lot of potential, just yesterday i was asked to make a custom engraved dragon ring in Silver - customer was very happy and ordered it.

(in the case of Silver, a 1:1 width-depth ratio had to be maintained for the engraving to be accepted for printing)

Ah, really cool idea, especially the freaky kids faces.

Your Mug on a Mug.....

Go for it!!!!!

dizingof,

That's a really cool idea! I dare say the photo of the baby is really creepy on the mug, though. I think the creepy feeling could carry over to more normal expressions, but the novelty is definitely worth the attempt.

Regarding the technical process of this, it looks like you're using a bump mapping technique - relatively dark areas are indented and relatively light areas are outdented. Are you using a plugin like photo2Rhino (if I understand what that plugin appears to be), or is this more of a manual process?

Concerning the heights, the solution depends on your process. I know from texturing that you should be able to normalize the heights in some manner. For example, I use a normalmap plugin for GIMP when doing bump mapping for textures - that plugin allows me feed in grayscale and receive a RBG normal map. The plugin also allows me to control the height and depth of the bump mapping. Perhaps it could be useful to you. http://code.google.com/p/gimp-normalmap/

That freaky baby picture was taken a second after he heard of shapeways FD & FUD delays..


"Your Mug on a Mug" i think i'll use it ! , when the material sticks around for good, perhaps with a revised cost structure - i have a strange feeling it wont .. too pricey for anything above 10cm ... decorative ceramics are simply BIG.

I had to really compromise with size for each and every ceramics model i made

I was totally surprised and happy some customer ordered a $375 vase from me.
(shapeways production team: dont forget to take some nice pics before you ship it)





@TurtlesAreCool,

Thanks for your input , i know of the plugins you talk about , they look good, i use a different tool to extrude and normalize the surface details from 2mm and above.