CAD/CAM Forges Rock Formation

The Queen’s Head rock formation at Yehliu Geopark is an unusual geographical landscape in Taiwan. The famous sandstone, sculpted by waves and wind over time into a shape that resembles an Egyptian queen’s head, is in danger of having its neck broken. More than 45 years of natural erosion and tourists touching it has reduced the circumference of the neck from 148 cm in 2007 to 135 cm in 2009.

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The surface model and stereolithography (STL) model of the Queen’s Head was created using VISI software.

In an effort to prevent tourists from damaging the “Queen’s Head,” the park introduced an artificial lifelike substitute to coincide with the entry of the 1,000,000th visitor. Ri-Cung Model Co., Ltd., an outfit that specializes in model prototyping, undertook the project. The original Queen’s Head structure was scanned using a Faro laser scanner Photon 120 and converted to point cloud data. The remaining geometry was constructed using VISI Modeling and passed through to VISI Machining for manufacturing.

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The complex surface model of the Queen’s Head was generated from the scanned data.

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To simplify manufacturing, the model was split into 32 sections and machined from expandable polystyrene (EPS). The finished model was assembled as a complete scale replica and placed in the gardens at Yehliu Geopark.

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::Design World::

Source: :: Design World ::