Blender-modeled 3D printed tortoise shell prosthetic goes viral

The work of Cícero Moraes and his team has recently met with enormous international press coverage.

Cogitas3d writes:

Dear friends,

It is with great joy that once again, I share with you the numbers from a viral that emerged from a work done primarily with Blender.

A few months ago I presented the case of the macaw named Gigi. She received the first 3D printed titanium beak in the world. This case was reported in 27 different languages.

This time I present you the story of the tortoise Freddy. She is the first chelonian of the world to have his hull completely replaced by one made from photogrammetry, digital modeling and 3D printing.

I will share some numbers of this viral story that has forcefully spread around the globe. We started by keeping tab on the reached countries, but soon we had to switch to a different metric. As of the time of writing, stories have been published in 47 different languages! This is an impressive mark for our humble team :)

Screenshots with the respective link of news in 47 languages can be seen here.

Besides those stories we have some rather notorious view counts for related videos:

• The LADBible - 16 million of views
• National Geographic - 6.7 million of views
• PlayGroundMag - 4.9 million of views 
• The Dodo - 1.8 million of views
• AJ+ - 1.1 million of views

The story was published in several USA broadcasts:

• ABC (several transmission channels)
• FOX (several transmission channels)
• NBC (several transmission channels)
• CBS (Inside Edition show)

Our team saw an opportunity to get in touch with the local Dutch media in order to pay homage to Blender's birthplace. We sent a press kit for different news agencies and managed to achieve the desired effect: Dutch newspapers reported the story of Freddy and covered a bit of our beloved Blender and its creator, Mr. Roosendaal. [Ed: I saw it :) - Bart]

• AD
• Het Parool
• DDS

Thanks to those news I was interviewed by a Dutch children's magazine, the 7Days. I focused on the latest project of our team: the recovery of a toucan which had his upper beak broken.

A project of this magnitude and nature is quite important to our Blender-verse. Thanks to its robustness combined with its flexibility, Blender is as a strong contender for the most diverse technical situations.

We would like to thank the reporter Rebecca Zamer from the United States, the reporter Janet Tappin from England and the website Bored Panda for turning this story into viral news. It was the uncoordinated but joint-effort of three articles published by these professionals that made Freddy a star of Veterinary Medicine. She is also an inspiring role-model for the employ of technology on animal saving.

I take here the opportunity to thank the members of the Animal Avengers team: doctors Roberto Fecchio, Paulo Miamoto, Rodrigo Rabello, Matheus Rabello and Sergio Camargo, for allowing me to be part of the group and trust 3D computer graphics to solve problems that previously existed in the field of ideas only.

I can not forget to thank Dr. Everton da Rosa and Dalai Felinto for the development of the essential addon we use to make complex Boolean calculations in Blender. This was originally developed for our work with dental prosthetics, but it proved effective to any prosthetic work, such as Freddy's and Gigis'. We are working hard to make it publicly available soon.

Thank you my friends. Until the next event!