Module 3 Formstorming

Weekly Activity Template

Zhou Sanren

Project 3

Module 3

Project 3 is an exploration of 3D scanning/imaging and facial recognition technologies. Through two weekly activities and one final project we will explore ideas of digital and physical self representation such as autopoiesis, reflexivity, 3D scanning ,and facial tracking. In this project, we will present data about ourselves, especially abstract data (personal habits, hobbies, personality, psychology, etc.) by using abstract graphs and programming them with P5.js. Or we will find objects that have a special meaning for us, scan them and create 3D printed models. Creating selfies in these ways shows how unique we are, allows others to get to know us, and is a great opportunity for self-reflection.

Activity 1

Based on the survey in Giorgia Lupi's “How to draw your own selfie - using your personal data”, I drew this selfie. It's very abstract but artistic, and importantly, I believe it's almost unique. This approach has inspired me a lot, not only that I can use such elements to represent myself, but also that everyone is a work of art. It's a pretty cool idea.

The first attempt opened my mind. It occurred to me that people do in fact change, and that perhaps the person I am now and the person I was a few years ago are two completely different people. As I recall what I consider to be the most important time in my life, the first thing that comes to mind is when I first came to Canada ten years ago. It was a big turning point in my life. So I thought back to where I was at that time and once again drew a selfie of me ten years ago based on Giorgia's survey.

I asked my friends what they were curious about me. I hope to explore myself more. The first question I was asked was “Do you prefer Coca-Cola or Pepsi?” I think it may seem like a “meaningless” question, but it's also representative of a person's personality. For example, a Coca-Cola drinker may be more of a rule-follower and a traditionalist. A Pepsi drinker may be more innovative or a sportsman. How to present the answers to these questions graphically was the hardest part, to keep it simple and make sense, I thought of the colors of the two brands and drew two circles.

I have a snowboard at home and I like to talk about snowboarding with my friends. So the second question they asked me was “Do you prefer snowboarding or skiing”. To be honest, they both bring me different joys, but it's hard for me to decide, so I'll answer yes to both.
The most immediate thing that came to mind when designing the graphic was the number of boards in snowboarding and skiing, and I wanted to simplify it a bit and make it more representative, so I used one line and two lines to represent the two sports.

The third question I got was “Do you speak or listen? “Personally, I consider myself a very talkative person, I like to export ideas and let others know what I think. Interestingly enough, my friends don't think I talk very much, at least not as much as I would like. It surprises me that other people's answers are not the same as my own, but it is also this inconsistency that becomes an important part of self-exploration and reflection.In terms of graphics, I feel that speaking is sharp. Because it's an output, sometimes a person's point of view can even be disturbing or offensive. So I used a triangle to represent “speak”, while listening is softer, so I used a half circle which also represents the shape of the ear.

Music is an essential part of our lives. Friends ask me what my favorite music is. It's hard to answer with a graphic and I wanted to make it abstract so I wouldn't draw a saxophone or an electric guitar to represent my favorite music. So, I've divided the music into two main parts: soothing, like jazz, R&B music and intense: like rock music. This makes it easy to show graphically. As you can see, I used a soft purple wave to represent the soothing music, and for the intense music, I used a manic orange dash.

“How many times a month do you go shopping?” This is also a common question, but it can also reflect a person's spending habits and attitudes. I don't think of myself as a person who likes to shop, but when I think back on it seriously, I realize that I still shop pretty often, more often than I thought I did. I wanted to simplify this simple question even more, so I used black lines to represent the number of times.

“Are you more focused on reality or fantasy?” That's a pretty sharp question for me. As I get older, I want to be described as “practical, mature, and responsible”. But I have to say, putting aside the expectations of others, I think I'm a fantasy person, I like to daydream, and I want to come up with all kinds of weird ideas and enjoy them. In terms of visualization, I drew “Reality” as a brown teardrop with a bigger bottom, giving it a steady feeling in terms of color and shape, and “Dreaming” as a purple teardrop with a smaller bottom, as if it were floating upwards.

“What's your favorite season?” I use different colors to represent the seasons. Light green brings to mind everything growing in the spring, lavender is reminiscent of lavender in the summer, light orange is the color of the fall harvest, and dark blue in the winter is deep and cold.

“Individual or teamwork?” In thinking about how to image the answer to this question, I came up with a lot of scenarios. In the end I chose to use a spiral to represent an individual. Because I thought it would represent the way I think when I'm alone, I often start from a point and then spiral to dig into the solution of things. And teamwork for me is the combination of the wisdom of many people at the same point, and in the end that point shines like a light under a convex lens.

In Canada, a diverse country of immigrants, people seem to speak more than one language. Language is extraordinarily important to me, not only as a tool for communication, but also for one's identity. My mother tongue is Chinese, I started learning English at a very young age and have been using it in Canada, and French is my third language, which has made it easier for me to live in Quebec, and has allowed me to learn about Quebec culture and French culture. In my mind, language is a form of communication, so I designed each language as a sonic wave.

“Ah, you eat with your left hand?” “Ah you play with your left hand?” “Ah, you can draw with both hands? “ This is a question I often hear in my life, and while it doesn't bother me in any way, it does remind me that it's something slightly less unusual. People are just a little more conscious of not being quite like everyone else, and I think that element can be added to my selfies as well, because being left-handed is something that I was born so, and it's part of what makes me different.

“What are you crying for? “ is a question that dissects my personality and psyche very well. We rarely ask ourselves emotional questions, and emotional questions are hard for others to detect. I'm happy that I was able to ask myself introspective questions because of this project, and I'm also happy that it provided an opportunity for others to get to know me. I drew anger as a bright red diamond shape, it looks angular and very irritated. The green leaf shapes, on the other hand, represent the moving moments in life, gentle and full of hope. Of course, there are times when people are inexplicably moody, blue, and prickly.

After answering my friends' questions, I came up with a new selfie. Since it's all elements of my own design, it's easier for me to interpret it without thinking. I love the way it presents itself, from the shapes to the colors, as if it's a reflection of my inner self, abstract as it may be, I know that it's me.

It occurred to me what it would be like to combine this new selfie with the one I drew earlier following Giorgia's survey. Because all of these questions already do a good job of roughly summarizing the portrait of me as a person. Therefore, I combined the two selfies to get this more complex and colorful selfie. I can resonate more with this selfie, it's colorful, complex and yet expresses me well.

I try to collect other data about me. It occurred to me that I have sleep tracking software where I can see how many hours of sleep I get each day, the quality of my sleep, and so on. Sleep is a very private activity, it's hard to “see” ourselves during sleep, but it's one of the most important human activities. I found my November data and generated charts, I can even recall what happened on those days when I had poor sleep.

As an immigrant from China. I often need to fly back from Canada to visit my family and friends. Luckily, I have flight recording software that generates a map of my routes with the date, distance, and length of the flight. Although these are cold numbers, each route reminds me of each trip, the people I met along the way, the time I spent with friends and family back in China, and how much I miss my family.

As an immigrant from China. I often need to fly back from Canada to visit my family and friends. Luckily, I have flight recording software that generates a map of my routes with the date, distance, and length of the flight. Although these are cold numbers, each route reminds me of each trip, the people I met along the way, the time I spent with friends and family back in China, and how much I miss my family.

After gathering enough graphical data, I started programming my data portraits with p5.js. I layered my selfies, converted them to PNG format, wrote them into code and looked forward to the results.

I tried putting in some of the layers and it worked just as well as the class demonstrated. I could see each layer moving with my head movements. This is a good start, next I need to adjust the order and size of the layers.

I imported all the layers of the first portrait into p5.js and got the same result as I drew. I tried to do drastic movements to see if there would be some interesting or unexpected effects.

I'm having trouble with the programming. As you can see, the top two large blocks of graphics completely cover up the rest of the details. So I set out to try to solve this problem. I think it has to do with the order in which I place the images in p5.js.

Unlike Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, etc., in programming, the code that is entered first (i.e., the code at the top of the screen) is instead displayed at the bottom. So I adjusted the order in which I placed the images, I entered the code first for the image I wanted to place at the bottom of the screen, and so on.

After some adjustments to the layer code, I got the same portrait as the sketch. It is also able to interact with me based on the movement of my head. After understanding the programming of p5.js, I could move on to creating my selfie.

Activity 2

First 3D scanning attempt. I chose a Dominican souvenir that has been with me for 8 years. I wasn't sure at first what kind of item would be suitable for 3D scanning, but luckily the small statue, with its rough texture and stable base, was the perfect item to scan, and I consider myself lucky to have succeeded on my first attempt.

I then tried to scan the second item. It was a stuffed toy, and I thought it would scan well because it also has a rough material. But in reality, a huge hole was created because its arms were blocking part of its body. I then made more attempts, including lighting it, but the results were still unsatisfactory.

Still this rain frog, which more than just creates many holes in the scan, can be observed to create a sticking of its bottom to the tabletop. Such an effect could have made editing and adjusting difficult later on, so I chose to discard this item and not include it in my final design.

My original Final Design idea was to present the theme of “travel” in a different way, because I like travelling and I would like to define myself by my travels, so I found a map from a board game and wanted to scan it. But I gave up on it because of its almost non-thickness and the difficulty of sculpting so many details in Cinema4D or Meshmixer.

I also tried to scan my travel carry-on handbag. It contains my passport, some tickets, and some souvenir coins. However I had a hard time placing it properly, and even if I tried to hang the bag, the contents would fall out, so I didn't have the option to continue scanning and editing it.

I decided to adjust my little statue first. I imported it into Cinema4D and realized that even though it was an almost perfect scan, I still saw some details missing, such as the statue's hand, which had a small hole in it that I hadn't noticed on Scaniverse.

I used the stitch function in Cinema4D to try to patch up the holes, but there were just too many dots and lines, making it very difficult to stitch and giving poor results. Even when I used the surface reduction, I didn't get the result I wanted.

I imported the statue into Meshmixer. unlike Steve's tutorial, my model turned red after import. I was a little freaked out at first because I was worried that an unknown problem was causing the model to show up red, which would affect my ability to edit the model. Then after a few tries, I came to the conclusion that the reason the model was red was most likely because I was importing the model from C4D into Meshmixer and it was the material that changed the color of the model. If I had imported the file directly from Scaniverse, it probably would have kept the original color and material.

I used the Analysis--Inspector--Auto repair feature in Meshmixer to sew up the holes in the bottom of the statue and the hands. The process was easier and quicker than I expected. Once again, it made me feel lucky that I chose an item that was very easy to scan and repair.

I imported the model edited in Meshmixer into Cinema4D, and I can see that the holes are completely fixed and very natural. This means that my first item ready for 3D printing is complete.

I still continue to scan items about traveling. I think about my luggage tags. So I hung it up on a thin wire to scan. However, the scanning results were very bad. Scaniverse barely recognized the luggage tag and instead scanned other items in the background. I guess the reason for this result is that 1. the item has almost no thickness and therefore cannot be recognized. 2. there are too many items in the background, causing interference in the scanning.

After scanning for items about traveling all failed, I tried to find other subjects to complete my selfies. I thought of my alter ego - a tarot reader as well as a lover of the Mysticism. So I tried to scan for related items and my own interactions with them. I laid the tarot cards flat on the ground and invited a friend to scan my whole body to show the action of selecting the cards.

The scans turned out better than expected. But zooming in still shows some detail issues, such as my fingers being scanned as a flat surface, as well as the tarot cards being spread out and also having almost no thickness, which may be difficult to observe in 3D printing.

Another problem often encountered when scanning people is the missing top of the head. This is shown in the picture. There are probably three reasons for this result: 1. the person scanning often forgets to scan the top of the head, 2. hair reflections caused by lighting, 3. the system's recognition problems.I will try to fix this in Meshmixer.

I changed my pose in order to make the tarot cards more visible. I hold the cards in both hands so that the items in my hands can be clearly seen. I asked a friend to help me scan myself. And used the crop function in Scaniverse to cut out the parts I wanted to keep. I scanned as many as I could for alternatives.

The abalone shell is one of the key tools of the tarotist. It is believed to possess natural purifying properties and its use as a receptacle for Palo Santo is an ancient tradition and ceremony. Therefore the abalone shell is very important to me. I tried to scan the abalone shell but failed in my first attempt because it has excessive reflections.

I lowered the lights in the chamber and scanned the abalone shell as many angles as I could, and slowly. This time it was better than the first time, but when we rotated the angle, we could still see a large hole in the abalone shell. So I need to think about better lighting methods and scanning methods.

On the third scan, I covered the abalone shell with a piece of paper to try to minimize reflections. You can see the results are better than the first two. I'm considering putting it into a Meshbox for further repair.

I imported the scanned full-body portrait into Meshmixer and used Auto Repair to seal up the bottom of the model. I was amazed at how intelligent Meshmixer is and how well it handles and repairs details. As you can see, the model in Meshmixer is exactly the same as it was in Scaniverse, with no problems such as lost materials or distortion due to the platform switch. I will continue to sculpt models in Meshbox and use them in connection with Cinema4D.

I imported the Meshmixer processed model into C4D. I'm very happy with the result, I hardly need to make any modifications. Maybe I can try to make the model's surface smoother, because obviously this model has too many sides. Also, the tarot cards on the ground are not visible enough, I need to think of other ways to fix this problem.

Obviously, Meshmixer doesn't do a good job of restoring the texture of the missing parts. As you can see in the picture, after completing the auto-repair, the top of my head still looks like it's missing. I wondered what the effect of this would be when imported into Cinema4D, so I didn't make any further changes.

Importing into C4D looks like this. Actually, it's not bad. I was just able to observe a more rounded piece at the top part of the head. But human hair itself is not a regular shape, so I don't think this affects the final result very much. Because of the missing material, my tarot cards now look like playing cards (which may also have something to do with my pose), so I may change the pose and have a friend scan myself again.

I put two models of myself together. It's very interesting, you can confirm that it's me by the facial contours and the hairstyle, and it's also the first time I've seen myself modeled, a little creepy but very, very funny. Next I will explore various combinations to find a satisfactory model combination and 3D print it.

I use Meshmixer to repair the abalone shell. This is harder than several previous models because you can hardly tell where it's been repaired and how well. Maybe I need to rescan the abalone shell because after going through Activity 2, I've found that the secret to modeling success is an almost perfect scan.

I imported the abalone shell into Cinema4D, however the holes were not fixed very well. And the abalone shell is almost sticking to it's supports. I'm more than sure to rescan my abalone shell and adjust it again in Meshmixer.

Reflexive Workshop

Captures a little boy attracted to the cars in an auto body shop, with his elders by his side to keep him company. I was feeling warm and cozy about the scene, and I also thought it was cute how the little boy was attracted to the car, while the lights in the store just lit him up. My group members, on the other hand, analyzed this photo and deduced that I am a person who values family, caring and hopefulness among people.

A sky shot looking up under Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal. I was on an outing with friends then, and we spotted the beautiful sunset, so we took pictures of it. This photo reminds me of the time I gathered with my friends, and the cozy evening sunshine makes it a special photo. My group members inferred from the photo that I am a person who loves to travel and is interested in religion and culture, and they could also see that I am a person who is good at finding the beauty of nature through this picture.

Jacques Cartier Bridge taken from the balcony.Honestly I don't give any meaning to this image, I had just moved to a new apartment whose selling point was the best view of the bridge in all of Montreal, so I often took pictures of the bridge from my balcony. Interestingly, my group members were able to sense that I might be someone with a strong interest in industry (I admit that's true, as I come from an industrialized city, and things related to industry remind me of my hometown) and they also thought that the sky and the view gave them a sense of the serenity and purity of the time I was there. Overall, the workshop was very interesting because we were able to discover that photographs can convey a person's personality, and that by comparing other people's perceptions with our own, we were able to deepen our own perceptions of ourselves.

Project 3

Final Project 3 Design

I scanned two versions of me in activity2.
I enlarged one me and reduced the other to show that when reading the Tarot, it was as if there was a higher dimensional me looking at the big picture from a higher dimensional perspective. My experiences, my inspirations, and my understanding of life make up the higher dimensional me. At the same time, my guardian spirit stands over my shoulder to help me along with the reading.

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