A program that converts a single 2D photo into a 3D model. There are some limitations, but still, pretty impressive. Seems to work best with bodies of rotation. Sadly, I don’t think it’d work well at figuring out, say, an aircraft, but a rocket might be a snap.
[youtube Oie1ZXWceqM]
Two models I mastered for Fantastic Plastic are getting close to being released. First, the 1/48 Soviet LK lunar lander:
Next will probably be the 1/72 “Avengers” Quinjet:
The major structures are all in place; now it’s the details.
DARPA has a VTOL program. Some fellers at Boeing-Philadelphia had an idea for a VTOL aircraft. So… they spent three days designing a subscale prototype, and two weeks building it.
[youtube 8N3RlaVYDdM]
It flies, if rather wobbly. Further tinkerage with the computer control system should clear that right up..
Three days. Think of it… not months and months of committee meetings and never ending analysis paralysis. Just design something that, while not being perfect, is good enough.
Interestingly, the same technologies (computers) that helped them design and fly the “Phantom Swift” this quickly are responsible in no small part for the aerospace industry grinding to a halt in recent decades. In the 1950’s and before, if you wanted to test an idea, you built it. Then stuck it in a wind tunnel, or launched it with a sounding rocket, or dropped it from a plane, or stuck an engine and an adrenaline junkie in it and actually flew it. But once computer aided design and analysis came on the scene, rather than spend lots of money building, flying and crashing, engineers spent lots of money designing and redesigning and reredesigning and rereredesigning until eventually the whole program got cancelled.
Coming along nicely.
Progress…
Turns out Fantastic Plastic released the 1/72 scale SPECTRE rocket kit (from “You Only Live Twice”) late last month. I made the CAD model the kit was grown from.
A couple projects.
USBP 03 and 04 are done, they just need some going-over. Here’re the layouts:
And the next CAD model project for Fantastic Plastic. Still early days.
The pneumonia well and truly kicked my ass. I’m well into recovery, but it screwed up my lung function but good, with a result being that I not only have exciting coughing fits for no readily apparent reason, but I also seem to have really low blood oxy levels. Damn near passed out a few days ago… because I stood up. Feh. The end result of all that is that my ability to get much done, or to even give much of a damn, has been drained. I have a few projects I need to accomplish, but progress has been really, really slow.
Blogging has, perhaps obviously, turned into something of a back-burner issue. So, please to enjoy this artists impression from the 1960’s showing a Douglas concept for a small space station launched atop a Saturn S-IVb stage (not sure if Saturn Ib or V), using Gemini capsules for logistics. This came from an eBay sale sometime back (that I did not win).
Several model projects, both physical and CAD, have fallen far behind. The physical ones will be most problematic… crappy lungs and solvents? Not good bedfellows.
Two projects *have* made a measure of progress… US Bomber Projects issues 03 and 04 near completion, and the sci-fi story I wrote some time ago and got promising feedback from a Published Author, has been revised into draft #5 and sent off to said author for a hopefully final and positive review. If so, I’ll send it on first to Analog, and see what happens.
USBP 03 and 04 should be out this week. If the story is accepted for publication, I actually have two followup stories partially worked up in my head involving the same characters. The three stories are quite different in plot and tone and even kinda genre. All are based on a “space opera” foundation, but one is intended as hard SF, one as a bit of comedy (with a bit of philosophy), one as a bit of horror. Ain’t sayin’ which is what. If they get published, it’ll be obvious. If they don’t, it won’t much matter.
Hmmm…
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