Print Your Face: MeasureKit × iPhone X

My first attemped ended up with some weird holes on the nose, but upping the unfill fixed this

MeasureKit is a cool AR measuring app for iOS 11. With the release of the iPhone X they added the ability to view a face mesh from the front facing camera, and even more recently they added the ability to export that mesh as a .stl file.

You won’t be able to take that file directly to your 3D printer printer, but I’m going to show you how with just a few steps you can convert your face mesh into an .stl file ready for your slicer and 3D printer.

Ingredients:

• An iPhone X
• MeasureKit (free download, $4.99 in app purcahse for “Pro”)
• MeshMixer from Autodesk (free)

Step 1: Scan your face

First step is to capture the .stl mesh using MeasureKit.

1. Fire up MesureKit on your iPhone X and in the bottom corner click the Ruler icon and select Face Mesh.
2. Get a good shot of your mug, and press the button in the bottom left corner that looks like a camera button.
3. You will immedatly be presented with the option to either save the capture as a “Regular Image” (great for your MySpace page) or as a 3D Model (.STL File).
4. For our purposes, select 3D Model (.STL File). Then, use the share sheet to somehow get yourself the file. I saved mine to iCloud drive but you can simply email yourself the file if you want.

Step 2: Thicken it up

OK, so you now how the .stl file on your computer. If you try to open it in a slicer (don’t do that yet) you will see that it has no depth, so you can’t slice it or print it.

1. Open up MeshMixer and click the Import button and (you guessed it) open up your .stl file. You should see your beautiful face you captured in Step 1.

1. Click the Select icon on the left hand navigation. Press Cmd+A (or Ctrl+A if you’re a Windows user) to select the entire model, you will see the entire model turn orange.

1. From the Select sub-menu, click Edit and select Extrude. Slide the Offset and Density sliders all the way to the right and click Accept to confirm the changes.

1. From the File menu, select Export and save your new model somewhere, it should be ready to bring into your favorite slicer for printing.

Printing Tips

A face .stl in Cura

• I had the best luck printing my face at about a 40° angle, 100% infill, with a load of supports.
• These are just the basic steps, you can expierment with cleaning up the model more. In MeshMixer, try using Edit and then Plane Cut to trim off parts of the mask you don’t want.