In pursuit of the objective of seamlessly transitioning from physical origami to its digitized counterpart, the innovative photogrammetry technique takes center stage. The 3D software Blender emerges as the instrumental tool for seamlessly integrating photogrammetric origami onto digital bodies, thus giving life to the captivating digital fashion runway show, Neo-Metamorphosis. Both the photogrammetry technique and the 3D software serve as crucial methodologies for acquiring essential assets and contributing to realizing the creative outcome. The initial experiments and prototypes were thoughtfully crafted to scrutinize and refine the described research methods rigorously.
Experiment 1: Capturing The Shower Curtain
Experiment 1 aims at experimenting with the photogrammetry technique.
Experiment with 3D reconstruction process and editing the exported file
The photogrammetric shower curtain provides a strong foundation and grants confidence in the making of the prototypes. The process of Experiment 1 also highlights that with photogrammetry, the initial point cloud does not necessarily indicate the final result, but could be taken into consideration.
Experiment 2 aims at capturing a physical body with the photogrammetry technique.
Body and environment scan by smartphone application Display.land
Three views on the digital reconstructed body in Agisoft Metashape
The results of the two digital body reconstructions from both Display.land and Metashape showed that capturing a detailed human body with photogrammetry technique, requires a more intricate process for better capturing the body data. Experiment 2 eliminated my original plan of using my own body for the prototyping stage and the final project, however, it would be an interesting approach in future works.
The goal of Prototype 1 is to successfully drape the digitized shower curtain onto the digital body for movement.
The rendered video of Prototype 1 was uploaded to A-Frame, an online VR platform. This result granted me the motivation to attempt combining the photogrammetry technique with fashion digitally. It was the photogrammetry technique and the use of 3D software that opened up a new path to fashion-making and fashion-thinking through transforming physical objects into digital material.
When thinking about transforming daily objects into their digital replicas with photogrammetry technique, the ancient art form origami came to my mind. Origami paper cranes are considered the most iconic and well-known shape within the origami history, because cranes usually have a meaningful representation and a fairly simple one to make for children. Origami cranes are also a personal reflection of my childhood memories because whenever I have a piece of square paper, I would always turn it into an origami crane unconsciously. Later on, when I started studying fashion design, I encountered a roll of fabric with origami cranes printed all over it, which inspired me to make origami cranes out of the fabric.
Origami-inspired shirt and dress, made by me in 2015
Photogrammetric origami crane & tutle process
Creating a digital body in MakeHuman and rigging the digital body in Adobe Mixamo
The making of Prototype 2
The successful result of Prototype 2 supports my idea that utilizing origami can open up a new path of exploration. What I have learned from making the prototypes is that this “creative chaos” is essential to the design process. It was the unexpected elements that occurred during the iteration that helped me to improve the work and expanded my understanding of digital perspectives. Therefore, the prototypes built up a strong research approach supported by my research methods and creative exploration, both influencing my creative research outcome, which is an origami inspired fashion collection within a digital spatial environment.
In the process of making this fashion collection with photogrammetric origami, ten types of origami were used as shown below. Flaws are shown in the form of missing parts and some of the hollows are filled with extra texture on the 3D reconstructed origami. This means in the transition from physical to digital, the physical origami does not just become digital, but also transforms their shape due to the missing/added data.
After obtaining the photogrammetric origami, it is time to drape them onto the digital bodies. The process of draping photogrammetric origami is similar to the traditional way of draping fabrics on a mannequin, there are a number of combinations and ways of positioning the material, except in the digital space, the fast workflow provides a much faster and visual result.
The idea of constructing a galactic environment was inspired by the look of the point cloud, each point within the point cloud representing a tie point, the captured data, flowing in the 3D digital space creating the illusion of a galaxy. And the 3D digital space is also like the actual galaxy, broad and endless, providing possibilities for digital creation and imagination.
To echo back with the origami paper, I created a square plane consisting of 20000 particles to represent the points in the point cloud, the particles draw the image of a photo of a piece of origami paper, which once the animation starts, would flow upwards and mimicking the effect of the points being disturbed by turbulence in the air.
The runway show is the main part of this project, it showcases the six looks constructed with photogrammetric origami walking in the digital space, displaying the details of the looks.
Please use the buttons below to find out more about the looks, the origami and the digital fashion show Neo-Metamorphosis.