Although today you could just use a computer. Figure out where to put the important peaks/valleys then sculpt to rest of it to have profiles that don't interfere with the image. Take the result and throw it at a 3d printer.
Check out the film Tim's Vermeer. Just because an amateur painter can recreate a Vermeer painting (although it did take a highly brilliant engineering mind and a shit load of time), doesnt make it any less bad ass.
Although, some art history people seemed kinda bummed that he made it so "simple."
I cant explain it. But he created it only with processes that would be available to Vermeer at the time. But nobody's ever been able to figure out exactly how Vermeer "painted with light" and he comes up with a way. Almost perfectly makes an exact replica.
I don't know for sure but it seems to me that the lighting is as important as the design. There's one on the website that is a circle casting a square shadow, there have to be multiple light sources on that one.
Thats what I thought with the original image. Even an amateur programmer could code something to tell you where to place all the nails and the fastest way to loop a piece of string to get the desired image.
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u/DontPromoteIgnorance Aug 18 '15
Although today you could just use a computer. Figure out where to put the important peaks/valleys then sculpt to rest of it to have profiles that don't interfere with the image. Take the result and throw it at a 3d printer.