Rick Martin
In recent months there are more and more great 3D printing projects popping up here in Japan. But here’s a fun consumer services that aims to make the process a little but easier. Fotofig lets you create a miniature human figure simply by sending in photos of a somebody taken from different angles. It’s a figure created from photos, hence the clever name ‘Fotofig’.
You need to capture every side of your subject, getting a clear image from the front, the back, and from the left and the right. The service then creates a digital composite that can then be printed as a plaster figure.
Created by House of Art, the Fotofig process is now in beta, accepting orders from customers who would like to create their own ‘Mini Me’ or perhaps a model of their child.
The size of the figures range from 15cm to 25cm, ranging in price from 39,800 yen (about $400) to process the data and print a 15cm figure, to 64,800 for a 25cm size. To process the data only, it will require 29,800 yen. An optional pedestal is also available, as is extra finishing.
Given Japan’s fascination with smartphone photo services, I expect we will continue to see even more services like Fotofig that involve 3D printing in the future.
Other places in Japan that have offered similar 3D figure services, such as Omote 3D pop-up store.
(Source: Fotofig, via the always excellent VS Media)
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Masaru Ikeda
Tokyo-based cloud startup 
