Additive manufacturing used to create model of a baby’s face

I had never heard a touching story about 3D scanning or additive manufacturing until last week, when I visited FARO Technologies’ Lake Mary, Fla., facility to learn how the two technologies complement one another.

The company’s senior applications engineer and scanning arm specialist, Les Baker, was sharing some experiences from his 20-plus-year career. One story he told was set in the early 2000s, when he worked at a scanning service bureau in England.

A partially blind mother wanted a photograph by which to remember her infant son. But because of her inability to see, she needed something other than a 2D photo.

The engineering department at the university the mother attended offered to 3D-print a polymer model of the child’s face. Baker scanned the face of the baby, which slept through the scanning process, then prepared the datasets used to additively manufacture it.

“The mother wanted a 3D photograph in order to remember the baby as he was,” recalled Baker. “Of course, the mother could touch the baby’s face at any time, but a photograph captures a specific moment in time. That was what was not available to the mother—the opportunity to remember her baby’s face exactly as it was without the filter of memory to diminish it.”

FARO Applications Engineer Les Baker (left) shared a heart-warming story about 3D-printing a solid model of an infant’s face with The Additive Report’s Don Nelson.