Creative Digital Arts Submissions

3D Design

Taj Mahal
Pawan C

For more detailed inspection, click to view on Tinkercad or download .STL File

Process Statement

Tinkercad is a free online platform that allows you to create your own 3D designs with the basic shapes that they provide you. You can drag and drop different shapes, resize, rotate, re-adjust, align, add holes, and even group different shapes. With these abilities in mind I decided to create a building based on a pre-existing real life implementation of the real world. The reason I chose the Taj Mahal is because I myself was from India and the one most famous building that has even got its name listed in the seven wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal.

To build this I looked at a real life model of the Taj Mahal and broke it down into different smaller shapes so I could find the similarities of Tinkercad’s shapes and the Taj Mahal shapes. I started off with the first thing I noticed in the image, a large white platform the Taj Mahal was sitting on. To create this, it was very basic, I just dragged and dropped a cube and adjusted its length and width to proportionalize the real life building and the 3D recreation. I then noticed that the Taj Mahal was broken into three different sections. I then broke down the main section into a large rectangle with large arches inside. To create the arches, I dragged and dropped a rounded roof (This is what one of the shapes was called), and turned into a hole and using the grouping feature, I made a neat arch shape inside the rectangle. Using more complex shapes I added in a window inside the arches because I couldn’t quite make out what was in the arches when I looked at the real life images.

To create the other sides of the Taj Mahal, I used a triangle and attached it in such a way that it was connected to the rectangle with the arches that I built earlier. I also noticed in the real life implementation there were arches on the triangle shapes that I added. I did a similar thing I did with the first arches, however they were slightly smaller. I couldn’t just copy, paste, and rotate the triangle with arches, I had to recreate it due to the complexity of the triangle position. However, the structure remained similar and you couldn’t tell the difference unless you were the one who built it.

I also noticed large pillars on all four sides of the Taj Mahal that slowly decreased in size, I couldn’t use a cone because of the point at the end. To fix this, I made a smaller cylinder on top of the base cylinder and kept stacking them up. I then noticed on the real life image, there was a small, cube like area on the top of the cylinders. I then noticed that there was a pointed top at the very end so I used a triangular prism on the top of the cube so it would flow and provide structure to the pillars. I aligned the cylinders using the align function and copied and pasted them on all four sides.

Finally, for the last part of the actual Taj Mahal, there are three large domes on the top. To recreate this on tinkercad, I added a cylinder and a half sphere on top so that the shape of the dome would be more visible. Finally, there was a long point at the top of the dome so I placed a skinny, but long rectangle to resemble the pointy part of the dome. To make the point aligned with the half sphere I again used the align function to align the long pole to the half sphere.

The very last step I made for the Taj Mahal was the background/ scenery. To create this I researched some photos of the Taj Mahal but in different angles to really harness the scenery. Based off of my photos that I have found, a common part was the water flowing and trees surrounding the water in a line. To create the landscape I made a simple, thin, green rectangle along the rest of the unused workspace, I then created two white rectangles to represent the marble water borders. Next, in between the two rectangles, I made another light blue rectangle to represent the water. Finally, I made trees alongside the marble water borders.

These are all the major steps on how I built the Taj Mahal using techniques to break down the Taj Mahal into smaller, and simpler shapes and the overall build. Once again to re-iterate, the reason I chose to 3D design the Taj Mahal is because I am from India and I thought it would be interesting to recreate one of the seven wonders of the world.