Creating Paintings for the Blind
Remy Closset uses Blender and a CNC machine to create tactile versions of famous paintings so that blind people can enjoy them too.
Remy writes:One year of my work as volunteer. My fight is to bring paintings to the blinds.
This work is made only with Blender, including sculpt mode for the final touch. The works are made with a milling machine. For each painting, it needs about 50 hours machine work. The large size is 48cm and thie other following the painting format.
I am myself visually impaired and this my fight for my blind brothers. My reward is to watch a blind person discovering the work and saying “I can see” only by touching.
The sheets are placed in some musea around my home. The price for making one painting is around 850 euros.
I’m for the moment searching sponsors because the financial situation is not so good for museums. For instant 5 paintings have been made.
Previously, I made an urban sculpture with the braille alphabet in Lyon. I found the money to do it, so I not so anxious to find money for the paintings!
I have another project with students: 3d printed models of complicate buildings for the blinds, made with Rhino. We are on the top with 3d printing about since 5 years.
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Great idea!
Really cool, thanks for sharing! :)
I like your avatar! And it is a nice idea, thanks for posting.
When 3D meets blind peoples needs ! Just fantastic !
Wow… this is just fantastic.
absolutely amazing and a really great idea
One of the most inspiring uses of Blender I’ve seen. I’m curious about the process.
What an admirable endeavor!
beautiful work
super!
if u need some help, dont hesitate to contact me by this site.
i ll be able to sculpt some master peaces for your project.
Dont hesitate to contact me in french.
What you do, Remy, is amazing!
Thanks a lot for your effort in this work and also for that you make the visual art more accessible for blind people to also enjoy it!
From my family background I know about how appreciated work as yours is!
And also for yourself and your personal background I want to say, that I adore your work and wish you strength and power and so many creative moments and that you may share them with us!
I thank you all for your support. To answer some questions about the process. It’s simple: put an hidefinition image as background and start placing vertices following the shape to make polygons. Than, move the vertices in Z following how you imagine the painting in 3d. Apply a subdivision. It takes a very long time to do it, but there is no automatic way to set the paintings in relief. I also use the displace modifier to get the painter touch on some parts. By sample, the Matisse is made with displacement maps on the planes to show the volume of this flat painting. To finish, export to obj and reimport for using the sculpt mode. To send the work to the cnc machine, it has to be a closed stl file, like a file for 3d printing.
Some of you proposed me to help. It would be great to make a team. Museums has not the possibility to pay commercial companies. The price of one picture is between 4000 to 15000 euros. In fact a good 3d modeler is payed 350/450 euros for a day job. So, the museums will never provide relief paintings for the blind.
So, tell me how I can contact people here like Skuax who proposed to help. I did’nt found the way to contact him.
Remy Closset
Hey all, if you’d rather not exchange email addresses here on the site, just mail me at bart@ this site and I’ll hook you up with Remy.
Hello Remy
I am interested in 3D-printing, too and I would like to get involved. Maybe for this particular case, Open Source and some Crowdfunding could help Museums all over the world being able to get “visuals” for the blind: Crowdfunding for paying the artists, and the results licenced Open Source so every interested Person (including Museums) just have the production costs of the 3D-Milling. I will contact Bart for sure…
Your idea is very good. Please contact me, I think we will surely collaborate.