3D Prototyping in design, using Minecraft?
Some of the biggest questions I need to answer in my PhD are questions surrounding the tools that I give to people in order to facilitate their creative work. For instance, I fully expect, and indeed will encourage, people to produce their own 3D models to be made on a MakerBot. This means people who participate in the research will be able to see their ideas come to life in 3D... of course that's the theory, but the actual process of making a 3D object on a computer is much tougher.
Most people don't know how to use CAD software, and even though there are free and open-source CAD programs out there, these still don't have a very shallow learning curve. Sketchup might be easier than AutoCAD to learn, but Sketchup is still more daunting from a cold start than say, MS Paint. Both allow for free expression in a medium, and both are capable of impressive results (e.g. 2D & 3D)- in my experience of running collaborative design workshops, handing someone a blank piece of paper and inviting them to draw some ideas can be very daunting. How could the creation of something as complex as a 3D model be made simple, and very much less daunting?
Cody Sumter & Jason Boggess of the MIT Media Lab have written a script that works with the really popular game Minecraft, called Minecraft.print(). Minecraft is a game with a deceptively simple premise; you build things from materials found within the game. There are 2 different modes:
The first is about survival; the player must survive in the game environment by building a shelter before nightfall (when monsters appear), and then collect resources to build more things and harvest food (this mode has 2 difficulty settings, normal and hardcore. Hardcore will only allow one death; if you die, the game world (and therefore everything one has built) is lost.
The second is an open environment, free from danger (and where the player can fly) which is open for the player to build whatever they can imagine from an unlimited supply of resources.
Minecraft.print() works by allowing a player to define an area of the game environment and then export that as an STL file. This is similar to the Mineways product, however it appears that a person has more control over what they export using Minecraft.print().
More information about Minecraft.Print() can be found at the website, as well as videos of the script in action and some models that have been created using it. Check it out here.
This has meant that I have spent a happy couple of hours playing Minecraft for the first time, so I can make sure it'll actually work in practice! I have to say though, that I haven't learnt any coding or programming languages, so I am struggling to run the Python code. I have emailed Cody & Jason to see if there is a more, er, user-friendly package that they have created to get the job done. If there is, then it'll be great to try this method out with people in design workshops!
