Nomte's 3D Teapot Viewer Is a Board-Free Arduino Circuit That Responds to Movement

Reddit user Nomte has shown off an impressive board-free circuit, which uses an Arduino to drive a real-time motion-tracking 3D viewer — modeling the teapot from 3ds Max.

Doing 3D graphics on a microcontroller can be a challenge. Rendering them in real-time still harder. Having them respond to motion, trickier still. And building a circuit which uses solid copper rods instead of a printed circuit board is never easy. Put everything together, though, and you've got Nomte's 3D teapot viewer — a neat desk accessory for any 3D modeling enthusiast.

"I've been using the 3d Studio teapot since 1991," Nomte explains of the chosen model. "The teapot shown in the device IS actually the modern 3ds Max teapot (slightly simplified), translated to coordinates and edges pairs for this device."

Using a copper frame which doubles as a ground plane, the handheld gadget has an Arduino, built-in battery, motion sensor, and small display. As it's picked up, the teapot rendered to the display moves in response to the physical movement of the build — and while it's in wire-frame at present, Nomte has said he's looking into changing it to render a solid variant.

More information is available on the project's Reddit post, and while Nomte hasn't publicly released the source code he has indicated it's based on an earlier MicroPython 3D rendering project by Martin Fitzpatrick.