Is 3D printer - the next gadget to follow the camera and video camera?

3D printing can do a lot of things. Once it becomes more mainstream, it could save lives with 3D-printed body parts, or extend the life of our home appliances and thereby cut down on land-fill junk. Alternatively, we could just screw around and use 3D printing to make mini-me models of ourselves. That’s the fun-filled option chosen by one chain of stores in China.

The company and the 3D-printed figurines it creates of its customers are now going viral on the Chinese web. The chain, called Pinla3D, opened a new store over the weekend in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, and now it has 11 locations.



Pinla3D scans its customers in-store and then gives them a choice of 3D model sizes. A 25cm (9.8-inch) figure costs RMB 3,580 (US$580), according to the store’s site. Three generations of one family can be immortalized in plastic at 1:9 scale for RMB 8,997 (US$1,470). That’s cheaper than we’ve seen it done by a Japanese startup site – with the added bonus that going in-person to the store will make the mini-me more accurate than submitting a bunch of photos to a website.


However, if you want a full-size replica rather than a pocketable mini-me from this Chinese store, you’ll have to pay a staggering RMB 175,000 (US$28,500) for a 1:1 3D-printed clone.

3D PRINT YOUR FACE ONTO A STORMTROOPER FOR $100
There’s always been something troubling about the anonymity the Star Wars films give their most ubiquitous villains. Anytime something bad happens to one of our guys, it’s a whole big thing, but Stormtroopers are obliterated left and right without the audience being asked even for a moment to consider their deaths. Who knows? The troopers could be good people caught in a bad situation. Just ask these guys.

Maybe this new line of toys from Disney will help. If you happen to be in Hollywood, you can have your face 3D-scanned and printed onto the face of an 8-inch Stormtrooper action figure that’s delivered to you a few weeks later. I’m guessing it will come out looking something like the members of that army of white people above.

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Japanese 3D printing company lets you put your own face on dolls
If you’re one of those people who love seeing your likeness on objects around your house and you got a bit of money to spare, we have good news for you. Clone Factory, a Japanese company that from its name itself obviously prints 3D human faces, can now print any face and put it on a doll’s body.

However, if you are one of those people who gets discomfited seeing human likenesses on inanimate objects, then look away. For a mere 138,000 yen (approx. 1,350 dollars), your dream of creating a collection of dolls with the faces of your loved ones can actually come true. (of course if that is your dream, then we had better see a psychiatrist, yes?) The process or “cloning” procedure is simple. The subject sits in a chair with digital SLR cameras surrounding him/her. A technician then digitally maps the subject’s head and prints it using layers of ink which then hardens to plaster. They stick it into a doll of the subject’s choice, and voila, you now have either a creepy or classy doll, whichever way you look at it.
The service is popular not just for creepy people who collect creepy dolls, but more so for Japanese women who want to capture a very special moment, like their wedding day. They recreate that look with the exact makeup and clothes and preserve it on the dolls. Well, at least now we know that their target demographic is not just weird doll collectors or budding psychopaths.

Japanese company will 3D print your fetus for $1,275

New parents have a strong urge to collect everything they can from their child's early life — from photos and videos to hair and fingernails. Catering to this demand to immortalize infancy is a new product from Japanese firm Fasotec and Hiroo Ladies Clinic — a 3D printed model of your little bundle of joy in utero.

Called Tenshi no Katachi or "Shape of an Angel," the product is based on a digital model of the mother’s torso built from CT or MRI scans, reports DigInfo TV. That model then gets 3D printed with two resins simultaneously using a process called Bio-Texture, which Fasotec also uses to create medical models. The result is a scale reproduction of your unborn baby, composed of an opaque white fetus encased in the mother’s clear, colorless abdomen. If you’re interested in procuring your own 7-ounce inaction figure, the price is ¥100,000 (about $1,275), and while that includes the decorative pink-and-white box, fetus keychains and cellphone dongles made with the same process will cost you extra.

I am all in on DDD.

winnipegjets said:

I am all in on DDD.

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bwahahahahahahaa... more than a hands full is wasteful...