Hi, i live in Australia and thinking of buying a 3d printer for home. I would like to make figurines of my family and also our classic vehicles we own. Any suggestions as to what would i need to do this and do i need a camera to take pictures of the vehicles to upload. what software would i need for this as well as a good printer. I would like the printed items to be in colour as well… please let me know your thoughts on this as i am a novice at the moment. Thanks Steve
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Enza3D
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Hey @Steve_Obrien,
For full color printing, you need some pretty high end commercial equipment. A lot of the full color prints you’ll see here and on the internet are done using Polyjets or a similar style printer. These have a very high price tag and really are not marketed for a consumer; the cheaper ones are more than $10,000 USD with the more expensive models topping out above $100,000 USD. There are other more affordable options, like Palette or Prusa’s 4 color system, but these do not produce “true” color printing, only sections of different color (no shading, blending or mixing).
In addition to the cost of the machines and materials, you need to have a very strong 3D modeling background to produce nice output. These printers need a base model file, as well as a color mapping file that you have to make, so the technical know how really limits users to professional modelers and designers.
Finally, if you want to print cars and you family members, you need some form of 3D scanning technology. There are apps that exist for smartphones that will help build a 3D model, but do not expect high-quality perfect results. Budget consumer 3D scanning technology will limit you to either a very small scale or models that need a decent amount of work to print successfully. The figurines you see floating around on the internet of real people are generated using very large full body scanners, which you can buy, but they are expensive and are not the same as professional equipment like Shapify.
I am not trying to dissuade you from 3D printing, it’s a great technology and hobby! But you do need to be aware that what you want is really something accomplished only with a very high budget or the use of professional equipment. For figurines of you family, I would suggest you find a Shapify (or similar) partner near you to 3D scan our family members and have the models printed by someone here with a full color 3D printer. The vehicles could be modeled by a designer from images, or you could try to find similar models online and modify them. Another option you have is to buy a high resolution resin printer, and paint the models yourself once they are printed.
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I’m an electrical engineer and 3D printing specialist. Have a look st my blog on my website. I just wrote a post on pretty much this topic yesterday. www.i3dgear.com
Rick.
