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The World of 3D Portraiture
An anonymous reader writes in with this BBC story about the niche market of 3D printed "selfie" models. By now we're familiar with tales of 3D-printed marvels, from guns to duck prosthetics. But when I traveled to a physics conference in March, I wasn't expecting to end up with a full colour printout of myself. However, at a small stall that popped up on Industry Day at the American Physical Society's March meeting — that is precisely the service that was being offered. I stepped on to a little rotating platform, tried to stand still for a few awkward minutes while a camera scanned me up and down, and then filled out a form. A few weeks later, a box has arrived in the post. Somewhere inside it, my two-inch twin is waiting for me to overcome my trepidation and show him the light of day. But I'm in no hurry; it all seems a bit... odd. The box sits on my desk for several days. Even though getting 'printed' puts me in the illustrious company of Barack Obama and Richard III, I'm unsure about my decision. What, I wonder, does someone do with a small selfie in statue form? Where does this business find its customers?
to a Twilight Zone episode?
Fricking physicists mucking around in god's domain
Wherever You Go, There You Are
It is easy to find customers in need of 2 inch simulacrums; voodoo dolls! If a little jute doll with a bit of your victim's hair having a pin stuck into it will cause pain then sticking a pin into a 3D printed one should blow holes in them like they were shot with Dirty Harry's 44 magnum.
Is a "selfie" now... any representation of a person? Or does everyone want to use that word as much as possible because trendy? :(
You're missing the most obvious use of this technology: you use it to make a full scale model of just one portion of your anatomy, not your complete body. You then give that model to your girlfriend to use when you're not there. Of course, guys being guys, most will be tempted to make a 150% scale model instead...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Never underestimate people's vanity... utility is meaningless.
That said... might be nice to have a personalized chess set with the selfie as king, spouse as queen... etc.... shut up and take my money!
Did people have the same dilemma with developed photos when they were first becoming widespread? You put it on your mantle beside the family portrait. You give it to a loved one. Give it to a blind friend in wallet size.
When my mother in law first heard about 3D printers and this type of technology, she wanted to run out and buy a 3D printer so she could make a family 'portrait' of statuettes. She still doesn't understand that she also needs a 3D scanner, not just a 3D printer...
I think the early startups were going after the wedding topper market. Those are the decorations on the top of the cake that have often been in the form of little bride and groom dolls. Now those dolls can be actual replicas of the bride and groom.
Well, what would you do with a photo of yourself? Where's the difference?
I heard there are even whole familys having their likenesses captured in awkward situations and sent it out to friends and family. especially around Christmas time. 2D, 3D where's the difference?
bickerdyke
Ascii art. The world in 6.66 bits.
I shall call him...Mini-Me.
Faces and bodies are one of the best ways to test the input and output of these technologies and puts it out there for anyone with eyes to judge. Those people tot scan and print are more likely to positively promote you if you involve them.
Wow. That was hard. So what's the actual meat to this article?
With the hugely popular selfie, I can't really why there wouldn't be a market for 3D printed images of themselves. I suppose it's a way to stand out from the crowd and it's easier (for some more than others, although computers can influence that) to be proud of their looks than to be proud of their achievements (certainly in a society where the role of merit keeps decreasing)
Not for mini models, but for health. Just like those people who take pictures of their face for years, I want full body scans every day for years. It'd be interesting to see how I've changed and it might give you a heads up for things like bad posture and unnoticed moles (which could turn cancerous). Ever wanted to know when that wrinkle developed or when that stretch mark appeared? How about your hair growth rate? Software should be able to calculate that without requiring you to measure it daily.
We have the tech for it now, but there's no good hardware and software package for it. A modern smart phone could do it with just the camera, but there's no software to go along with it.
This would be useful for animals, houses and trees. Not only to sell to the dog owners, but as general kid toys also. Could be also used for designing city-areas in mini-scale
> Where does this business find its customers?
Japan. There, PVC figurines of various comic book (anime / manga) characters are super collectible and not cheap by any measure. (Most of them are of schoolgirl superhero(ine)s in various state of skimpy miniskirt outfits, cat ears and other weirdness usually described as ecchi / hentai.)
Cosplaying is also a national hobby in Japan, that is people dress as whatever anime figure they fancy and compete who's attire is best at festivals like the half-million visited Comiket. With 3D-printing they could collect little PVC figurines of themselves as cosplaying e.g. Sailor Moon Crystal or Hatsune Miku, etc., rather then generic molded ones.
Let me say there is big money in the otaku subculture in Japan (hint: millions of fans who barely spend on anything else than jpop-culture, incl. food.) The 4ft tall Volks Dollfie figurine, fully wardrobed, goes for like 70,000 yen or 700 USD and its new designs sell out 6mo before production.
So now when somebody tells you to "go fuck yourself", it would actually be possible to do.
What better way to play with yourself?
Disclaimer: should not be applied to skydiving, base jumping or landing an aircraft.
- Marissa Myers' lawyers
1) Ability to print life size
2) Ability to print with a jointed endoskeleton and soft, skin-like silicone body around endoskeleton
3) Ability to generate 3D model from 2D photos (especially extreme telephoto photos)
4) Shame-free "plain brown wrapper" shipping option
There's a kickstarter right now doing full 3D scans of people and they seem to think that the primary market will be people who want a fully digital version of themselves for video games and other virtual environments. They do have various "3D portraits" available, but I get the impression they think their biggest business will be just providing the data files from the scans.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
"What, I wonder, does someone do with a small selfie in statue form?" Add a few toy dinosaurs and go all "Wash" on it. "Where does this business find its customers?" Curiosity takes care of that. Vanity picks up the spare.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
As someone that works in the education industry, we've certainly had the Art department inquire about this sort of technology in the past.
The end goal not necessarily being to print scans (though the option is always there), but to archive students sculptures and creations at the end of each year, for future classes to look at for inspiration.
It's simple enough to take a photo of a student's painting for archive, but more complex items would be great to have in 3D.
Howard and Raj use the 3d printer they bought to create both a whistle and plastic dolls of Howard and Bernadette:
Link
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
>> Where does this business find its customers?
Just put an ad in "Self" magazine. Or figure out who the hell is buying selfie sticks and advertise next to those.
How are they painting them? Is that why it takes 2 weeks?
ask putin: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
One of the biggest uses for stuff like this is to make models of your children and grand parents, even children WITH grandparents. They make great gifts. This scanner here uses depth scanners like a kinect but I built one with 104 cameras and it uses photogrammetry instead. The results are pretty good. So good that I and a partner setup shop in Massachusetts making models just for this purpose... You can browse some raw scans here:
shameless plug, I know I know.
www.sketchfab.com/EinsteinsWorkshop
Put your name on it, then walk around with it in your pocket. Go about the world as you normally would.
When a friendly "kills" you, they will take it from you. After your respawn and get your gear from your corpse, you have to track down that person and negotiate for your ear, err, "3D printed selfie".
Send a likeness of your kids to your parents so the grandparents can see what their grandchildren look like in 3D. Yes, a photograph would do just as well, but there will be some who prefer the 3D representation.
Grandparents can send their likeness to their grandchildren so that even if the grandkids don't see their grandparents often, they'll still know what they look like.
Cosmetic surgeons can print out a "before" statue, make some changes to the model, and print out an "after" statue to give clients a chance to see what their new faces or bodies will look like in 3D rather than just on a monitor.
Related to the above, "save state" for your physical appearance. If you scan in your face and body and then suffer a disfiguring accident you can use the scanned data as a template for the cosmetic surgeon to put you back together. This would probably be limited, at first, to people like actors and actresses, models, athletes in sports where there's a high risk of facial injury (boxing, hockey, American football), or the military who either have a lot invested in their looks or are more likely to suffer disfigurement due to the nature of their work.
Grave markers that look like the person whose grave they mark, or hollowed-out 3D portraits to hold cremated remains as urns.
On a more whimsical note:
Custom awards. 3D print out an Oscar with an actor's face in place of the blank face. Or a sports team where each player poses for their own custom trophy.
A family with many children could turn them into a set of nesting dolls with each child's doll nesting inside their immediately older sibling's doll.
I think this is how the "sculptor" created the statue of Lucille Ball that's been in the news lately. (http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/04/travel/lucille-ball-statue-feat/)
He dug up her corpse, scanned it, and "Voila!!"
I'd love to have a set of minis like this for my current D&D group. The thought of our dumpy asses going toe to toe against ogres and dragons is pretty amusing.
Just remember....they all come "pretested" at the factory for your protection.
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Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” Bandar Bola
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