After the relatively strait forward and somewhat familiar process of centering, securing, and quartering Walter White came the meat of the assignment; reconstructing Mr. White in virtual space.
The process seemed simple when reviewed in check list form but the intricacies of the assignment became apparent after working on it for just five minutes.
FIRST ATTEMPT
My first strategy was to match up the horizontal and vertical scan sections and attempt to loft from curve to curve and later smooth out the interfaces where the curves met. After the entire structure of curves had been lofted into a primitive surface shape it became apparent that to work with this method any further would be too time consuming and overcomplicated.
SECOND ATTEMPT
Surely a program as advanced as Rhino had a more optimized workflow than I had discovered in my previous attempt. And it did. In conversing with a classmate I was introduced to network surfacing. With this I was able to create more accurate objects in less time and with an average of 6 curves using mostly 2 photographs as my main reference, and the section cuts to a lesser extent.

design media blog post 2design media blog post 2

Last week I proceeded to create a container in which to encase ‘Walter’. In creating this box my prime directives were to execute the process with the utmost precision and to mitigate the potential for error in the live foaming process. To do this I took a number of measures which manifest in the creation of my casting mold.
It struck me that to navigate this assignment with as little risk of complication as possible, it would be necessary to place Walter within the very center of the box in an effort to align the toy with the cutting plane. To do this I found the center of my bottom panel and the center of the interior dimensions of all four sides of the box and marked them off. I then glued Walter to the bottom panel of the box, looking directly down from above, centering his giant head over top of the crosshairs I had drawn previously.
The assembly of the box was executed with consideration that it was to be merely a container for the finished product and would likely be destroyed in the removal of the injection foam Walter brick.
Concluding points
The box was a success and served its purpose as the formwork for the final product. There was a slight hang up where the foam weakly bonded to the box, and in retrospect I would have used a release agent. The Walter brick fits snugly back into the container the original toy came in.
See Tam’s post for the next step in our process!