Printing 3D Portraits on Full Color 3D Printers: ProJet (Zprinter), Mcor, and 3D Pandoras
The 3 main full color 3D printers used for 3D portraits are the Mcor Iris, Projet 660, and 3D Pandoras (pictured left to right):
Owning and operating each of these 3D printers for your 3D printing business can be expensive. They tend to break down a lot so you will want to make sure you get a maintenance contract from a reputable reseller that sells full color 3D printers. You may even want to have an extra 3D printer for added redundancy. According to some Projet 660 users (the most popular printer to print 3D selfies), uptime hovers around 65%. which is why most people choose to use a 3D printing service rather than do it themselves.
The other really important things to consider when choosing which full color 3D printer to use with your 3D photo booth are 3D portrait print quality, the full color 3D printer’s reliability and how long it takes to post process the 3D portraits once they’re done printing.
Print quality
Here are some pictures of sample prints off each full color 3D printer (starting on the top Projet 660, Mcor Iris, and 3D Pandoras):
In terms of 3D portrait quality the Mcor Iris print and the Projet 660 print are about the same. The 3D Pandoras’ print is a bit rougher on the outside and resolution isn’t quite as high. When evaluating the quality of different prints it is also important to make sure the size of prints you are comparing are the same. In the above pictures, the head on the full color 3D print from the 3D Pandoras printer is larger than the other prints. This means that you will see more detail on that part of the 3D print as long as the texture on the 3D portrait is of high enough resolution. The reason why people don’t print larger all the time is that it can get really expensive. Everytime you double the height of a 3D portrait the amount of material needed goes up by a factor of 8. Here is an example of large face 3D printed that shows the quality that can be achieved when 3D printing at larger size:
For 3d photo booth photogrammetry systems, like the Twinstant, the bottleneck for 3D portrait quality is the full color 3D printing technology, not the full body 3D scanner.
Printer Reliability
Almost all full color 3D printers on the market struggle with 3D printing reliability. 3D printing technology is nowhere close to the state where you can just plug it into a wall and expect it to produce finished 3D portraits ready for customers. Many people new to the 3D printing businesses underestimate this and end up spending too much time maintaining their full color 3D printer to prevent it from breaking down. The powder based 3D printers (Projet 660 and 3D Pandoras) tend to have less uptime than the Mcor IRIS. This is because the powder in these printers settles on the printer’s moving parts causing the printer to jam. The powder also can degrade the printer’s internal electronics over time. A good uptime metric for these printers is ~75%
Postprocessing
If you aren’t familiar with how the Projet 660, Mcor Iris, or 3D Pandoras full color 3D printers, please watch the below video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wGuFWcetCQ
After printing on your full color 3D printer, you need to post process the 3D portrait. For the powder based full color 3D printers you can use an air compressor to free excess powder from around the 3D portrait. For the paper based full color 3D printer you would use an exacto knife. Projet 660 and 3D Pandoras 3D portraits are much easier to post process because it is easier to get the powder out of the fine cavities in the 3D models (under the arms or between two people). With the MCOR Iris prints it can be difficult if not impossible to remove leftover paper in the 3D print where there is lots of fine geometry.
Conclusion
Currently, the Projet 660 is the most commonly used full color 3D printer for 3D portraits, since it produces high quality 3D prints that are relatively easy to post process. The Mcor Iris is a great full color 3D printer for 3D models that have less intricate geometry, but struggles with post processing because it’s hard to remove the paper from the fine parts without breaking the 3D portrait. The 3D Pandoras full color 3D printer is still very new and while the quality isn’t quite there, it could one day be a great low cost alternative.
