Fingerprints Apps

I was reading an article about how some hackers were able to able to defeat some fingerprint password security on some computer devices by using publicly available high resolution pictures to recreate fingerprints. Are 3D printers capable of reproducing (in fine enough detail) physical replications of finger tips? Just wondering how long it will be before there are apps available to scan photos (or photos of fingerprints) and recreate them physically... False evidence could be created. Finger print evidence could be challenged in court.

At the kind of resolution you're talking about, even the most advance FFF printers would have trouble getting grooves to reliably print at all, let alone print with enough accuracy to mimic a fingerprint. DLP printers could theoretically make a print that could fool a scanner, but the ridges would actually show the pixelation of the projection under a microscope. A visual inspection would quickly tell a fake from the real thing. Consumer SLA printers can theoretically do it, but they just don't have the resolution and the ridges would be perfectly even and fairly thick, It would be harder to tell a fake on casual examination, but still possible.

Extremely high-end SLA and poly-jet printers might be able to make varying ridges that would fool inspection, but those are (and will remain) in the six-figure price range. If a criminal can afford one just to spoof some fingerprints, they can also likely afford to just pay someone else to do their crime.

You know, the next story to float around the Internet will be that 3D printers have replaced God.

OME

Well, some people have a painfully simplified view of what it is to create something. Never underestimate the general public's ability to completely misunderstand the core concept of any new invention or idea.

some of the new sla machines do have the resolution to reproduce fingerprints.
It's not actually that high a resolution - you can clearly see them with the human eye after all.
In fact if you stood it on edge and printed at 0.1mm I suspect you could get a pretty decent version with a good fff as well.

So yes, use a flexible resin and there's no reason whatsoever you can print fingerprint overlays with a good - not 6 figure - sla machine.

You couldn't do it flat on an fff machine because the important resolution is width not height. But on a good sla - no problems at all. And at 0.1 or 0.05mm vertical you could probably do it on an fff.
You can even use a standard desktop scanner at 1200 dpi to take a good copy.