You will encounter interesting facts, both historical and about 3D PRINTING!

After a year of 3D scanning, modelling and 3D printing, the fully 3D printed replica of the t. rex is finished.

The 12 meter long and 5 meter tall replica will be shipped to the Japanese Dinosaur Museum late April 2021.

In 2013 a small t. rex bone was found in a field in Montana, USA. A team from Naturalis traveled to Montana to find out if there were more t. rex bones hidden in the ground. Soon after they started digging, they knew that they were on the right track. After weeks of carefully digging, they found a fantastic well preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton which was unusully complete. It was only missing a large hip bone, the claws and parts of the jaw. After a crowd funding campaign, Naturalis was able to get the t. rex to their museum in Leiden. By 3D scanning the right hip bone, mirroring it and 3D printing it, they were able to complete the original skeleton which has been on display since 2016.

After a huge reconstruction of the museum, Naturalis opened its doors again August 2019 with a dedicated exhibition area for their dinosaur collection. The t. rex is one of the biggest attractions of the museums and other museums were very interested in the t. rex . The Japanese Dinosaur Museum wanted to get their hands on a t. rex as well and when they found out that Naturalis has its own 3D scanning and 3D printing lab, they requested to have a full size replica in a slightly more attacking/walking position than the original t. rex .

To digitalize the original t. rex and to be able to 3D print it, the skeleton had been carefully taken apart so that all the bones could be 3D scanned individually. With the 3D model, it was possible to change the position of the t. rex, as requested by the Japanese Dinosaur Museum. Another huge advantage of having all the bones in 3D files is that Naturalis was able to integrate the full metal frame, which holds all bones in place, inside the bones. This makes the replica even more realistic.

After the 3D models were prepared and the position of the t. rex was approved, the 3D printing started. Naturalis owns 2 Builder Extreme 1500 PRO 3D printers and have previously used them for other dinosaur projects. In total, 300 bones have been 3D printed on the Builder Extremes, , from the extremely large skull to the very small bones of the claws. Some parts, such as the skull and hip bones, have been cut into 2 or 4 pieces to print the parts in the most efficient way, so using less support material and simply because they were too big. All bones have been 3D printed in the highest resolution using a 0.3 mm layer height and 6% infill and the material used for this project was PRO1, a very strong PLA based material.

When the bones were printed out one by one, the paint expert started with painting all of the bones by hand. Every 3D printed bone was taken to the original skeleton to make an exact replica of the colour for that specific bone. Then it was time to integrate the frame into the bones. This hasn’t been done before and it worked out perfectly. When you see the 3D printed t. rex, you hardly see any steel parts of the frame.

The entire process of assembling the 3D printed bones onto the frame took place in the beautifully designed atrium of Naturalis. After the first assembly, they took the replica apart a few times to make a detailed manual of how to put it together. The replica will now be packed and shipped to Japan and will be on display at the Dinosaur Museum Japan from October 2021.

Source: Builder3dprinters

The post Naturalis 3D prints a full size replica of their original Tyrannosaurus rex appeared first on 3DBGPRINT.

After months of scanning, 3D printing, mounting original bones and 3D prints, Dirk is proudly on display at the dinosaur gallery of Naturalis.

The National Biodiversity Research Center Naturalis, located in Leiden, the Netherlands, is responsible for one of the largest natural science collections in the world, numbering over 42 million species. These collections also include a 66-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, discovered in 2013 in the state of Montana, USA. And the big news is that the museum now has another dinosaur in its ranks – the Triceratops Dirk. Finally, visitors will be able to enjoy the rich collection, because after 2 years of construction work, Naturalis is opening its doors wide with a brand new museum. But let’s start with Dirk’s story, which is quite interesting. The dinosaur lived about 67 million years ago. However, its skeleton was recently discovered, excavated near Newcastle, Wyoming, USA. Although the skeleton has been found, it is not complete. It is missing bones, ribs, one of the horns, as well as a large part of the skull. At this point, Naturalis faces a real challenge – to reconstruct Dirk’s skeleton and display it in its newly opened museum. All of this is ultimately organized and only happens thanks to the modern technology of 3D scanning and large-scale 3D printing. Dr. Peter Schalch, PR and Marketing Manager at Naturalis, explains: “Modern paleontologists use 3D imaging and printing techniques as a means of reconstructing remains and skeletons during scientific excavations. In this case, a Builder Extreme 3D printer is needed, which manages to print every missing part of the dinosaur’s skeleton. This printer can actually be seen and even shows us demonstratively how things really happen in the new Naturalis museum.” The fact is that the workflow is not small before it gets to 3D printing. First, bones of other triceratops must be scanned in order to visualize Dirk’s skeleton.

“If we have a left bone, for example, and the right part is missing, we can do a mirror scan and a 3D print,” explains Schulp. “For other bones, such as the vertebrae, we had to scan a Triceratops skeleton from the collections of the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. Its skeleton complemented what we found from Dirk. After the scan, the big 3D printing process began. This is not the first time Naturalis has used the help of 3D printing. The museum has been using this technology for several years, but until now only on a small scale:

“This technology works great if you need to 3D print smaller bones,” says paleontologist Prof. Anne Schulp, a researcher at Naturalis. “Even for a larger bone, if we combine several small ones, it will still be no problem. But if we are talking about a project like the Triceratops Dirk, we already had to seek help from a serious printer like the Builder Extreme. The bones we had to print for Dirk were between 50 and 130 cm long. That is why we invested in a Builder Extreme 1500 PRO 3D printer, which has a long print run.”

3D printed dinosaur skeleton in a museum with Builder Extreme!

In recent months, Builder Extreme has been printing 24/7 to print all of the hundreds of different elements. Many of Dirk’s bones are too fragile to be displayed at Naturalis, so they are also 3D printed and mounted on the skeleton.

For the Naturalis Museum, the details of the skeleton are of utmost importance, and therefore the 3D printing of the bones is done in the highest possible quality. Of course, some of the bones are fine, others have a complex shape, and some of them are printed with a supporting structure. Once printed, any support is removed and the bones are painted by hand. When painting, the bones are colored a slightly lighter version of the actual ones so that visitors can tell the difference.

Although Dirk is now a completed project and presented to visitors, the printer Builder Extreme 1500 PRO is already reserved for another major Naturalis project. If you want to see the printer itself, thanks to which Dirk was restored, you can also see it in Bulgaria in the showroom of 3DBGPrint – official representative of Builder for Bulgaria. You will be able to see more in the showroom of 3DBGPrint live demonstration of how it really works Builder Extreme 1500 PRO, to experience the magic of 3D принтирането and even order a free sample. Don’t hesitate – visit 3DBGPrint!Source: Builder3dprinters

The post INCREDIBLE BUT FACT: A 3D PRINTED SKIN OF A DINOSAIR IN A MUSEUM! appeared first on 3DBGPRINT.

The First Bulgarian General Printed by 3Dbgprint

With the support of the talented Denislav Sirakov.

Sava Mutkurov is the only Bulgarian officer who has been awarded the “ORDER FOR HERBROID” I degree.

The bust is created by a 3D printer BUILDER EXTREME 1000 and can be seen in Veliko Tarnovo.

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