3D Printing

3D Printed Full Scale Torso by Quod Shows Potential of 3D Scanning

As a sister company to Europac3D, a leading UK reseller of 3D scanners and provider of 3D scanning services, Quod works with many different artists to allowing them to integrate 3D scanning – and thus 3D printing – capabilities in to their body of work.

These projects are also used on the Quod website to teach the public about 3D scanning and 3D printing technologies — demonstrating their potential as well as their limitations. One recent work on a full size male human torso made these particularly clear.

The sculpture was 3D printed in ceramic using 3D Systems Project 660 technology, which is a powder based inkjet machine most commonly used to 3D print “mini-me statuettes” in full color gypsum (see video below). The torso was scanned as a single piece but then had to be divided in half digitally as the entire object would not fit on the machine’s print bed.

This also allowed the system to print the object as hollow, thus reducing material consumption. The two halves were then assembled to create the full size upper body section with an incredible level of bone and muscle features, impossible to replicate by hand with this accuracy.

artec-eva-3d-scanner

That is because the original body section was scanned with an Artec Eva hand held 3D scanner, ideal for medium size objects (such as a full scale human body part), which is capable of creating point clouds of 3D objects with a 3D point accuracy up to 100 microns (which coincidentally, is also the typical resolution of most desktop 3D printers).

Unlike its sister company, which has been operating and growing in the professional UK 3D scanning sector for years, Quod is relatively new and its approach is much more consumer oriented and is one to keep track of for the next, expected, consumer 3D scanning revolution — in close relation to 3D printing.