General inquiry about possibilities of scanning and reprinting sculputure. Newbie.

[acensor]

Am clueless about what's out there in 3D scanning and printing. Want get pointed in the right direction. As am investigating possibilities of getting my wife's existing sculptures scanned & 3D printed.

Request for 3D scan and then print services. Inquiry.

My wife is a sculptor.
(see www.meeracensor.com)

I'm looking for a service that could do a 3D scanning of some of her works and then 3D print them in the same or different (smaller or larger) sizes.

If such a service exists it could be a good alternative to repeatedly casting from a mold, and offer the possibility of scaling size up or down. Although detail must be preserved this are not precision machine parts requiring tight tolerances.

Her works vary in size from approximately 8 x 4 x 4 inches to as much as approximately 18 x 10 x 10 inches.
The originals needing scanning might be in bronze, plaster, or hard plastoline.

Any output final materials might be acceptable.

Does that sound like something that might be a viable option?
If so, where would I start shopping for services that can do that?

Note that I'm in Ashland Oregon, and since the originals can be heavy or sort of fragile in some cases, would be best to find a service within one day's drive.

Thanks for your time, help, and consideration.

Alex

[This]

I think your best bet is going to 3DHubs.com, and find a Hub in your neighborhood that can Scan and print for you,
I would love to do it for you, but I am in Europe

[acensor]

I think your best bet is going to 3DHubs.com, and find a Hub in your neighborhood that can Scan and print for you,
I would love to do it for you, but I am in Europe

unfortunately the only way to enter and search on 3DHubs.com requires me to uploade a CAD file...when I have only original solid objects ..sculptures. And at first glance it seems that most or even maybe all of the services there print only from files. I see no hint that any can scan. And if the can, no way to tell which, or how to directly contact them.

Alex

[This]

Go to the main page of 3DHubs, klick "Browse 3D printing services"
on the 2 "Choose a material to print in" and click the gray "more filters" option, then you can turn on "Can help with 3D scanning"

the you should see below all the hubs that could be able to scan, and you don't need to upload a file.
make sure you correctly select where you live.

And you can make a posting in the Talk section. https://www.3dhubs.com/talk

[awerby]

Scanning services are still not as widespread as printing services, nor are they as inexpensive. You'll need to be clear about how much detail you want on these scans, since there's a wide range of resolutions in scanners, with the cheapest ones (unsurprisingly) being less capable of capturing fine detail than the more expensive types. Also, resolution in scans tends to decrease with the size of the object you're scanning.

If you've got a lot of these to do (and it looks like you do) it might be worthwhile to bring the scanning in-house, and send out the files for printing. The Capture scanner we sell (along with Geomagic Wrap software for registering and cleaning up the scans) would probably do the job. If you really want to outsource this, art foundries are starting to use this equipment to "point up" macquettes for enlargement, so you might check around to see if any of your local foundries offer that service.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com