Kongtechnology.com

Tourists Model As Their Very Own 3D Souveneirs

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 09:05 PM PDT

This is a rather more interesting take as souvenirs go, because it isn’t every day you can strike a pose on the street, and instead of having it immortalised in your digital camera, you get to bring it home with you as your very own 3D-printed sculpture.

For two weekends in January 2011, on Barcelona’s La Ramba street, in a project aptly named Be Your Own Souvenir, the BlablabLAB used three Kinects and a RepRap 3D-printer to render any willing participant to model on the street as their very own little statue.

Check out the video of the project here.

The way the project worked was simple. The participant stood on a small platform and asked to pose. Then 3 Kinects were used to capture the participant’s likeness in 360-degrees and render the person into a 3D mesh in a computer. The 3D data is then fed to the 3D printer and voila! Out comes a little statue of the person.

The aim of the project was to link the street user with arts and science, breaking the boundaries of the the producer and the consumer, the artist and the tourist.

This is just as much street art, as it would be if a sculptor had sat and carved something right there. I think this is a very exciting project. I’ve always though that 3D printers were a very interesting innovation. Some people may argue that 3D-printed ‘sculptures’ have lost a certain human touch, but I think that it’s actually a great way to make a sculpture. What do you think?