Project Shellter - Turritella

Back in the day when the Beastie Boys dropped their groundbreaking "Paul's Boutique," researcher M. B. Cortie dropped another masterpiece - "Models for Mollusc Shell Shape." In it was described a 16 parameter mathematical model for synthetic seashells, and parameters for many species of molluscs were thoughtfully provided in the appendix. This is one of them.

Modeled on the shell of the Turritella communis sea snail, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritella_communis, will Purple Pincher hermit crabs like this? Only experimentation will tell!

It was created using Maya's shellNode plugin, which is based upon Cortie's model, and thickened using Blender's Solidify modifier http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-256-beta/solidify-modifier/.

The goal is a workflow using open source tools, but this shell surface required a commercial tool. Thanks to a tip from http://www.thingiverse.com/mesheldrake, the conversion to a solid is now handled by an open source tool. :)