Pearl With Shell Pendant

I chose shells as my very first 3D Printing project and since we have to design any type of jewelry, I envisioned my design to be a necklace. During my research, I found that its morphology how it creates textures and patterns is very interesting. The original form that I chose was a regular shell, but I ended up duplicating it and adding a pearl in the middle of it.

Seashells come in an astounding variety. Some are curved and round, others long and tube-like, smooth, others bumpy. 

Also, they come in different colors.

All that variety comes from the same source: little animals called mollusks, with a mighty muscle called a mantle.

Seashells are the exoskeletons of mollusks such as snails, clams, oysters and many others. Such shells have three distinct layers and are composed mostly of calcium carbonate with only a small quantity of protein. Most shell colorings are caused by pigments incorporated into the shell. Usually the pattern and color will follow how the shape of the shell is, and how shell form its shape is based on the environment. It could be stripes or spirals of color. As the ‘animal’ grow inside the shell, the bigger it gets. 

I found out that normally only a little number of pearls being formed inside the shell, and for jewelry purposes, humans use some injections into the clam to grow more pearls. Through my project, I want to show a natural morphology of pearl that grew inside a shell without any human involvement.

• Shells
• Mini Turntable
• White Cloth
• Camera
• Ring light
• An empty space with natural light
• Laptop / Computer (I use Mac)

Softwares: Metashape & Meshmixer

I placed my shell on my turntable. I used one of those condiment turntables, and I set up my light source from the top and I didn't change it until end.

I took a bunch of pictures using my Samsung Galaxy camera. I used a Sony camera before, but it's hard for me to keep it in focus mode, so my pro version on my Samsung was enough. I made sure that I collected them from different angles. I had 39 shots in total.

There's a bunch of free software that is available on Mac to do Photogrammetry, and I chose Metashape (they also offer 90-day trial!)

I follow some of the tutorials that my classmate recommended, and it did help me to go through the entire process.

It read my scan pretty well, and I was so happy with the results.

From Metashape, I exported it as OBJ file and bring it to MeshMixer, another free Mesh Editor Software.

I cleaned up the surface part where it caught my white background, and I increase the thickness of it a bit because it seems a little fragile.

Then, I added some design concepts from the piece that I've cleaned up. I mirrored the shell piece and added a sphere in the middle of it, so it will create a form that mimics a shell opening gesture with a pearl inside.

I played around by adding materials to the surface, but not really sure how my school library's 3D printer will react.

I also added the hook part at the backside of my finished shape.

Once I'm happy with the final design, I exported it as VRML because they said with this file, the machine can print in color, but you have to make sure with yours. My school has Stratasys J750.

You can always adjust the thickness of your model before sending it to the printer. I wasn't really confident that it's gonna print well and solid because it didn't scan the other side of my shell, but surprisingly, it turned out good!

I did the same thing with my other piece, but I painted some colors on that one.