Travelling through the tunnels and chambers of a real fire ant colony. A 3D scan of an aluminum cast of a fire ant colony produced this model of the ant colony which I used to create animations moving through the colony. See the other videos on this channel to see the casting process. I’ll surely be making more videos with this model so let me know in the comments if there’s anything specific you’d like to see.
Pictures of the aluminum ant colony cast used can be seen here: http://anthillart.com/castings/062
I sold this cast to a guy who took it upon himself to make the 3d scan scan and send me the files (a true genius), I wanted to thank him by name and give him credit for the scan but I haven’t been able to get in touch with him. I don’t want to post his name without his approval because he may not want his name out there for various reasons. If I hear from him, I’ll thank him by name here and or in the video.
I used a free program called 3D Slicer to process the scan data (DICOM files) into a model of the ant colony.
Then I imported the model into another free program called Blender to make the animations.
Both programs are actually free, there are no paid versions. I don’t know how such amazing software can be free but I appreciate the work they put into the programs and they deserve a shout out.
My gear: https://kit.co/anthillart (I haven’t added all my equipment but if there’s any interest shown, I’ll add more. I make a commission if you click the links there and buy anything. I have actually used everything there, unless otherwise noted. I don’t realy want to shill for products but making videos like this isn’t easy or free.)
It took a lot of work to put this together and I had to buy to a new computer to handle the rendering. So, if you can, help support the channel by donating on Patreon: https://patreon.com/anthillart or just watch, like, and share my videos. Thanks!
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