4D Vision!

[cljohnston]

I first heard about this company after seeing this anatomy model of a Great White Shark linked on Neatorama, but I was at Griffith Observatory yesterday for a little presentation on Apollo 15, and stopped off in the gift shop while I was waiting, and found out what I'm gonna buy myself for Christmas!

4D Master-Products | Space Shuttle Cutaway 1:72 Model

(Now I find that this thing's been out since 2008! Dang! Behind the times again!
Starship Modeler - Aoshima's 4D Vision Space Shuttle Kit Preview )

I'd built the Revell 1:72 Orbiter kit just after STS-1 (even painted the missing tiles on the OMS pods!), and had the "Space Shuttle Operator's Manual" soon after. Looking at the awesome internal diagrams in that book, I always dreamed of having a model with all that detail! Why'd I have to wait thirty damn years?

Now, I know what y'all are thinkin': "But Chris! Most of us Orbinauts think the Space Shuttle was just a big White Elephant! We're much more interested in the Apollo era!"

4D Master-Products | Saturn V Cutaway 1:100 Model

4D Master-Products | Apollo 11 Command/Service Module

4D Master-Products | Apollo 11 Lunar Module

I only wish these things weren't so horribly expensive! (Well, at least you don't have to paint anything!)
And please forgive me if this thread seems like I own shares in the company... didn't mean to spam.
But I just thought the 3D modelers here, and the NAASP & AMSO users, would salivate over all that detail, just like me!

 

[ky]

I wonder if they have the CST-100.........lol.

 

[cljohnston]

^ Well, they haven't even started building that, soooo... probably not.

 

[chobolatom]

Looks cool, but I don't so careful to make models with kits. But it looks awesome! :thumbup:

 

[Rtyh-12]

What's the connection to 4D?

 

[Arthur Dent]

4D = you can look "inside" a 3d body.
3D = you can look "inside" a 2d body (i.e. see the interior of a circle or a square)

 

[chobolatom]

Saturn V, ahhh. I want it!!! :lol: How many parts it have? It's hard to build it?

 

[cljohnston]

Saturn V, ahhh. I want it!!! :lol: How many parts it have? It's hard to build it?

The specs say 180 parts. And the hardest thing about building a nice model is the painting, and all the parts are pre-painted, so it's more of a 3D jigsaw puzzle.

 

[Notebook]

Not sure if Airfix are known outside the UK:

http://www.airfix.com/airfix-products/space/

Did the Saturn V when it originally came out, might have a go at the Vostok...

N.

 

[Rtyh-12]

4D = you can look "inside" a 3d body.
3D = you can look "inside" a 2d body (i.e. see the interior of a circle or a square)

Err... ok.

I thought it might have something to do with that, but it's still 3D, not 4D.

 

[chobolatom]

The specs say 180 parts. And the hardest thing about building a nice model is the painting, and all the parts are pre-painted, so it's more of a 3D jigsaw puzzle.

Aha, so do you need glue? Or it's "puzzle", the parts fit into each other?

 

[Hielor]

4D = you can look "inside" a 3d body.
3D = you can look "inside" a 2d body (i.e. see the interior of a circle or a square)

Yeah, not quite. The 4th dimension is fairly commonly agreed upon as "time."

 

[n122vu]

I think the idea behind them though is that "you" are the fourth dimension. The model itself is 3D, but "you" can look inside it, take it apart, see the different components, which adds another 'dimension' to learning, if you will.

But the 4th dimension is still time, regardless.

**Edit**
Of course, one could argue, that with 180 parts, this thing will take 'time' to put together. Time that you, the model assembler, will provide, thereby solidifying that you are the 4th dimension (time).

 

[Wishbone]

Oh... I thought it was an allusion to T-Rex...

 

[cljohnston]

Aha, so do you need glue? Or it's "puzzle", the parts fit into each other?

Well, that Starship Modeler review of the Space Shuttle kit explains about that.
It also mentions that the instructions are in Japanese! :facepalm:

 

[SandroSalgueiro]

You can either leave the model transparent or opaque, do I get it right?

 

[cljohnston]

^ Well, it's half transparent and half opaque.

 

[Turbinator]

 

[Arthur Dent]

Yep. That's 4th dimensional. I thought about Flatland, when the 2d Square finds it weird, that the 3d sphere can look "inside" the Square. He suggest, that there must be an even higher spatial dimension.

Topic: Airfix are known outside the UK. At least by me: My colleagues gave me the Apollo Saturn V and the "One small step for man" moon landing scene kits for my last birthday.

I started painting them, but I didn't have enough colours and primer. So the Saturn V is still waiting to be assembled

 

[Notebook]

Thats a nice set of colleagues you have there, mine ate the birthday cake! Glad Airfix are importing, I spent a lot of my early years making their 72nd scale kits. Also, Frog, Revell, and others, though they were expensive imports and hard to get.

N.