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Get your own Mini me...

reconron

Active member
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2450908/Asdas-3D-printing-service-UK-first.html


Is this the end of figure sculpting? :unsure:
Watch the videos.


Greetings,Ron.
 
Just another tool Ron.

Imagine early artist ranting against the use of primitive brushes over the use of sticks and fingers in cave painting?
 
Seth McFaralane uses that with his vinyl action figures. It works great for commercial use when you can grab the cast of the Walking Dead for an hour or two, scan them and print to use in molding for production. Really streamlines the method to get an action figure you can identify and will fly off store shelves, but it's not going to win over any modelers hearts or any contests.

The best 3D printing still hasn't come near the quality of a sculpt when it comes to organic things. They angles in something like a face are too complex. It's like a comparison between injection molded figs and a finely cast resin. It'll never be convincing in small scales, resolution becomes an issue, there's no room in a 1/35 head for layered printing.

However I've never seen the results as good as depicted in those photos, so either they've really upped the technology or the photos are a bit doctored. I do love the way the clothing came out. That's tedious to do by hand.
 
3D printing at the high end has gotten very good. Layer thickness is being measured in microns so you can get pretty fine detail. I know some printers can have a layer thickness of 15 microns (~.0005") or less.

Reading that article, it doesn't mention at all what kind of printing equipment they're using, but since they can afford the hand held 3D scanners, I would imagine its being used for a lot more than just printing replica's of people. 3D hand held scanners like that tend to run in the several thousand dollar range, so I wouldn't be surprised to find that they can afford higher end printers.
 
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