If It Prints, I'll Let You Know

Avatar may not have won that coveted golden statuette, but the fact that it shared stellar billing with the other stars in the Hollywood galaxy is certainly an achievement in itself. Avatar created a milestone in that it is quite unlike the usual Oscar fare that one would see; and a lot of what made it great was thanks in part to innovative technology.

A feature on PR-Inside shares the role that 3D printing technology played as far as special effects for Avatar goes. The technology was reportedly provided by Objet Geometries Ltd., a company that develops, manufactures and markets “ultra-thin layer, high resolution 3-D printing systems and materials that utilize PolyJet™ and PolyJet Matrix™ polymer jetting technologies to print ultra-thin layers.”

Of its role in Avatar, Objet Geometries shares: “For Avatar, James Cameron relied on Objet-created models to plan how his characters fit in Pandora’s lush environment. With 3D printing, the production company Legacy Effects made detailed figurines of each blue-skinned humanoid to test lighting for every camera shot in the movie. The company also used the technology to create a Transformer-like, walking battle armor complete with cockpit.”

Objet also provided technology to another film – Coraline, nominated for Best Animated Feature. LAIKA productions turned to Objet in the creation of “thousands of models ranging from cars to door knobs and food spreads”. Objet technology also allowed the character Coraline to display more than 208,000 facial expressions – considered as a break through of sorts in stop-motion animation.

Objet Geometries was founded in 1998 and has offices in the United States, Mexico, Europe, Japan, China and Hong Kong.