About Winter The Dolphin
Winter was found stranded in Mosquito Lagoon, near Cape Canaveral, Florida when she was only two months old, entangled in a crab trap line which cut off circulation to her tail flukes. After disentanglement, she was transported to Clearwater Marine Aquarium for treatment of her extensive injuries. However, despite exhaustive efforts to promote healing, her tail deteriorated and could not be saved.
Her story is unusual – most dolphins trapped in monofilament and crab trap lines do not survive. Despite overwhelming odds against survival, Winter’s energy and ability to adapt to her new physical form surpassed expectations. She recovered completely, adapted to a new swim pattern and learned to eat fish on her own.
Challenges:
To restore Winter’s ability to swim again and also how are they going to keep the tail on Winter and not have it hurt her skin.
Solutions:
Using 3D scanning, reverse engineering and rapid prototyping to create a prosthetic tail for Winter.
The prosthetic was developed by Kevin Carroll at Hanger Prosthetics, who combined an innovative gel ‘sock’ with a replacement tail to allow Winter to start swimming again.
The prosthetic took 18 months to design and create. The ongoing development of the gel, now called ‘Winter’s gel’, has further assisted in the use of human prosthetics to aid with comfort and fit. Carroll is now also said to be researching further gel materials that will stand up more robustly to salt water conditions. As a result of his work, Winter has regained the ability to swim, although she had to relearn many skills and also learn new skills for working with the prosthetic.
To achieve the desired outcome, the studio seamlessly combined real footage of Winter the dolphin – the star of the story – with animatronics and accurate 3D data to bring the movie the realism it needed. NeoMetrix Technology Inc., a Florida-based provider of 3D scanning, reverse engineering and rapid prototyping, assisted in delivering accurate 3D data of Winter, the dolphin at the center of the story, for use in the movie.
Using a Creaform MetraSCAN 3D scanner and Geomagic reverse engineering software, the NeoMetrix team scanned the animatronic dolphin used in the filming, so that the movie makers could easily and accurately combine 3D visual effects with the real-life footage.
“This was a great project to do as it demonstrated how effective 3D scanning is for capturing complex shapes accurately,” said Dan Perreault, president of NeoMetrix. “Creating a model like this from scratch would take forever. Using Creaform and Geomagic, we had the dolphin scanned and processed into watertight 3D data within a couple of days.”
Visiting Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where Winter resides and where filming was completed, the NeoMetrix team combined their expertise in scanning and using Geomagic software to enable a fully-watertight 3D dolphin model to be quickly created. This allowed the visual effects studio involved with the movie to easily deliver realistic footage without stressing Winter with repeated takes and scenes.
About the Movie
The movie “Dolphin Tale”, from Warner Bros, tracks through a real life story of Winter, a young dolphin, is a stunning piece of work.
Winter lost her tail in a crab trap and Sawyer, the 11-year old boy who befriends her. Sawyer meets the rescued dolphin at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, a marine rehabilitation center where she lives. Sawyer rallies friends and family alike to save Winter by convincing a pioneering doctor to create a unique prosthetic attachment to restore the dolphin’s ability to swim.
Winter the dolphin plays herself in the movie assisted by an animatronic dolphin and 3D visual effects. Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr., and Morgan Freeman also star.