FROGBlog - 3D Foam Carving Central

A training project at our most recent FROG3D® install in Las Vegas saw a bird model scanned and then enlarged. Thought it was something worth crowing about. Get it? I said 'crowing' and this is a project involving a crow. Awesome.

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Our friends over at Icon Poly Design Studio recently wrapped up a kick butt project for a project called GuitarMania that's turning heads in Cleveland. GuitarMania is a community public art project in Greater Cleveland that raises millions of dollars for the United Way and for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum's education programs. It features dozens of 10 foot tall replicas of Fender Stratocaster guitars transformed into works of art by local artists and national celebrities. The guitars are then displayed throughout Cleveland for all to enjoy.

Icon Poly have become masters of creating these kinds of public art projects with their FROG3D® system and a proprietary short production run process. They were nice enough to share some pictures of the process with us, and we're nice enough to share them with you. The pictures below show the basic process, including the original guitar, components being 3D scanned with FROGScan™, the guitar being milled on the FROGMill™ and the final versions ready for painting.

To see the creations that the guitars are turned into, check out the GuitarMania website.

Rock on Icon Poly.

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Located in Bastrop, Texas, Deep in the Heart Art Foundry (DITH) has established a strong reputation for their phenomenal craftsmanship and large-scale work.  They are a full service foundry that can take care of everything from project conception to installation, with stunning results.

DITH have generously shared production photos from some of their recent projects. These photos not only show what DITH is capable of, but they also give a good overview of the process and the role that 3D foam carving plays early on. Deep in the Heart uses the FROG3D® foam carving system to create their enlargements in foam, which then serve as a foundation for the molding process.

The project below is an exact replica of the Texas Tech class ring, but just a bit bigger than you might expect. Standing over 6 feet tall and weighing approximately 2 tons, it's aptly nicknamed 'Two Tons of Tradition'. The shots below provide a glimpse into the process.

Check out DITH at their website www.deepintheheart.net, and look for more of their highlighted work here in the near future.

Foam enlargement (created using the FROG3D® system)...


Prepping the foam...


Creating the mold...


After patina...


Installation...


Check out the school's perspective in this video. Read more

As we've mentioned before, automated foam carving has proven to be a great tool for accurately enlarging sculptural work. We've helped a range of foundries, sculptors and enlargement houses implement efficient enlargement processes that pump out perfect enlargements in a fraction of the time of conventional processes.

Our friends at SculpturesPacific magazine recently asked us to put together an article that sheds some light on how automated foam carving and our FROG3D® system have revolutionized the field of sculptural enlargement. We were happy to oblige. The article appears in SculpturesPacific's most recent addition. Click on the magazine cover below to take a read. While you're at it, check out some of the other great content in the magazine - Jock and his team at the mag are doing some fantastic work.

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We've had a few folks asking about the use of robots for 3D foam carving and cutting applications. Thought we'd post an article we wrote a while back that explains the differences between the FROG3D™ system and robotic machines... Read more

We all try to make strides towards a more sustainable world, The Southeast Fall Creek Olympic Plaza community has gone beyond and made this a major focus in their design.  With the help of a local Vancouver artist, Myfanwy MacLoed, and Heavy Industries (http://www.heavyworld.com), these gigantic sparrows, known as ‘The Birds’, have made quite the landing. “The work attempts to highlight both the lighter and graver sides of what can happen when a non-native species (are) introduced to an environment, how the beauty of birds can sometimes mask their threat to biodiversity.” Thankfully this 3D foam carving project never required the droppings to be made as well!
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When fans of 3D foam carving get excited, they're usually talking about their end products or the technologies they're using to get to the end product.  But where's the love for the actual raw material that forms the basis of any foam carving project? In the spirit of bringing recognition to this oft forgotten material, we're always on the lookout for new and improved foam products. To that end, we've been experimenting with vegetables - seriously. We got our hands on a soy-based foam product that's not only environmentally friendly, but that does a pretty good job when it comes to 3D milling. We took a relief file and tried out this new foam with some pretty good results (see below).  What's more, the product is edible. One of our techs took one for the team and tried it out. The result? Uhhhh, not so good.
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Our most recent article gives an overview of the 3D foam carving process. For those not familiar with the process, the article gives a sense of how the artistry of conventional production processes mixes with the automation of CNC equipment and other technology to really give speed,efficiency and accuracy a serious boost...

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