Dr. Gianpaolo Di Silvestro, established paleontologist and CEO of the Italian company Trilobite Design Italia, specializes in this group of extinct arthropods, and uses his company to sell both original trilobite fossils and model replicas to collectors, institutions, and museums across the globe. After realizing that a great number of museums were able to provide text information on these fossils, but not a true physical representation, Dr. Di Silvestro decided to provide these museums with palpable trilobite models that would allow visitors to actually hold the ancient past in the palms of their hands. Since traditional fossil casting and modeling proved to be much too costly and time-consuming, Dr. Di Silvestro instead collaborated with Italian architect and 3D designer Francesco Baldassare to work in tandem and design accurate 3D models of trilobites.
“We are projecting ancient creatures that lived 430 million years ago, so it isn’t easy to know exactly how they’ll turn out,” said Dr. Di Silvestro. “But it worked – even the first print was excellent! With an easy download process and professional response to all our requests, Materialise helped us to develop our ideas into high-quality images and scale them for a perfect product print.”
These 3D printed trilobites have already started popping up in museum exhibits around the world. The first complete 3D printed trilobite model realized by Trilobite Design Italia is currently on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada. In the near future, Dr. Di Silvestro also hopes to collaborate with assorted museums to develop special tactile exhibitions to help the blind get the same hands-on experience. For those who are true paleontology enthusiasts, Dr. Di Silvestro has a wide array of real and rare trilobite fossils from across the ancient world, available for purchase on his Trilobite Design Italia website. Discuss further in the 3D Printed Trilobite forum over at 3DPB.com.
[Source: Materialise]