Jan Kirsh, sculptor and owner of Jan Kirsh Landscapes, LTD, and Jan Kirsh Studio, engaged Direct Dimensions for an important 3D project close to her heart. Though she has been a highly acclaimed landscape designer for over 25 years, Ms. Kirsh’s background is in photography, design and the fine arts. Combining her love of nature with her artistic training she returned to her ‘roots’, and began hand sculpting stylized fruits and vegetables a few years ago. Her sculptures caught the attention of the organizers of the Architectural Digest Home Design Show who offered her a place in the March 2009 show.
Jan’s vision for her sensual sculptures was that they could be created in multiple sizes and various media, and installed either indoors or outdoors. She works each piece thoroughly by hand, in clay and then a plaster cast, to achieve the desired level of perfection in the finished form. She needed a way to make her pieces easily scalable and needed a company that could help her generate her first prototypes for the show. To resolve the scalability issue, Jan contacted Direct Dimensions. With expertise beyond the scanning and digital modeling, Direct Dimensions was also able to help Jan when it came to sourcing vendors for prototypes, and even creating high quality renderings for marketing purposes.
After working closely with Jan to understand her plan for her sculptures and her various needs, such as the importance of retaining all hand sculpted detail at any size, the 3D scanning technicians opted to use a Faro Arm and Faro Laser Line Scanner. The arm and scanner combination can capture the data with an accuracy of +/-0.002”, allowing every fine, hand-worked detail to come through in the replication process.
Once the fruit and vegetable sculptures were scanned, the Direct Dimensions modeling team opted to use Polyworks Modeler software to complete the digitized sculptures. Final models were delivered as STL files. These models were digitally scaled to the sizes Jan displayed; from a 7 inch persimmon to a 7 foot leek.
The STL format is well suited for rapid prototyping and milling; the completed STL files enabled Jan to have a variety of sculpture prototypes created for the Architectural Digest Home Design Show. Prototypes displayed at the show were made in a variety of materials; from bronze to black marble, while others were cast in resin, Forton, or milled in a carvable-board that was coated with a two-part, high gloss black finish.
Jan successfully exhibited at the AD Home Design Show as Jan Kirsh Studios. Following the terrific reception in NYC, she was asked to participate in the 2010 Philadelphia Flower Show. In anticipation of the Flower Show, she will be expanding her sculpture line to include even more fruits and vegetables. Direct Dimensions was able to help Jan further by creating additional hi-res renderings from the sculpture data for her new website and marketing materials.
You can see the fruit and vegetable sculptures at www.jankirshstudio.com
