--- title: 3D Printing: Make Your Own Products | TIME description: Turn yourself into an action figure or make your own earings as 3D technology changes the future of how we buy and make our products canonical: https://time.com/video/0TvzyOrU/ og:title: 3D Printing: Make Your Own Products og:description: Turn yourself into an action figure or make your own earings as 3D technology changes the future of how we buy and make our products og:url: https://time.com/video/0TvzyOrU/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/0TvzyOrU/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 3D Printing: Make Your Own Products twitter:description: Turn yourself into an action figure or make your own earings as 3D technology changes the future of how we buy and make our products twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/0TvzyOrU/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # 3D Printing: Make Your Own Products > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 3D Printing: Make Your Own Products [Watch (HLS stream): 3D Printing: Make Your Own Products](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0TvzyOrU.m3u8) (4:57)  _Published 2013-01-15. Turn yourself into an action figure or make your own earings as 3D technology changes the future of how we buy and make our products_ --- Oct 13, 2023 2:17 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [What Does 3D Printing Mean for the Future?](/video/wDkiUaVG/) ### What Does 3D Printing Mean for the Future? [Fashion's 3D-Printed Future](/video/W2AgFCqJ/) ### Fashion's 3D-Printed Future [Derby the dog: Running on 3D Printed Prosthetics](/video/D81GmXVm/) ### Derby the dog: Running on 3D Printed Prosthetics --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ]. New Yorkers were introduced to the world of 3D printing as a group of businesses gathered to show how their services can revolutionize the way we buy products. Trivia is a It's the public store, where we want to show to everybody who wants to visit, what's the big potential is in 3D printing. [ SOUND ]. You can see 3D printers working their magic. And you can see what they can make, and so you can see what is possible. [ MUSIC ] And this gets mind- blowing. This new way of making things may change the way we shop, where an item you buy may be one of a kind because you made it. The 3D printing, what it enables you is to make any item even if it's only once at a reasonable price. Personalization, customization becomes then really relevant, you know you can make something with someone's name on it or you can put someone's face on, on a, on a coffee mug. Basically, your imagination becomes your only limitation in finding this perfect gift. [ MUSIC ] For the person you care about. The way you go about designing products is by using online, easy to use 3D software. You can customize items with great detail to the point of cropping your own face on an item you want to make. You go from a digital description like a Word file but then in 3D [ MUSIC ] To a physical product. Not a piece of paper with some words on it, but an actual physical thing you can touch. [ MUSIC ] One way to more naturally designed 3D products, is with 3D scanning. 3D scanning company, ShapeShot says they have introduced one of the first 3D scanning photo booths. [ INAUDIBLE ] People at photo booths should be really easy. You just sort of line yourself up. That's the [ INAUDIBLE ]. Little bit more. There you go. That's actually good. Whenever you're ready you can hit that flashing Red button, and take your picture. And the really great thing about this, is it's so fast, so it's the time of the flash. Just like taking a picture. Similar to photography in that you get to, sort of, almost catch a moment. Once we have the picture, the first step is to make those pictures into a 3D model, and as you see, it's a really realistic rendering of not just the picture, but also the shape of the person. The body scanning is a completely separate scanner. It's actually really easy to use. It works almost like a body camera. [ MUSIC ] What we do is, as we go up and down, and they sort of scan this like a video camera. We're scanning frame after frame after frame after frame. So, every shot, you get a whole panel of pre- data. And then post processing it, you put all of this. [ INAUDIBLE ] into one coherent model. [ MUSIC ] And then, you know, maybe within the hour you could have the button pushed and ready to go to print. [ MUSIC ] There's not just the scanning that we're getting really good at, and there 3D printing that we're getting really good at. But there's this whole thing in the middle, which is how do I take the scan Which is a really nice little interesting object to begin with. But it's not useful yet. If we can open up the, the use of this data to the right people, then they can develop their own applications around it. [ MUSIC ] Start- up company New York Toy Collective discovered a way to use both 3D scanning and printing. To make your personal life even more personalized. We can actually scan your very own body parts, and turn them into a body safe silicone toy. Well, it's kind of like the premium level of sex toy, you know. It's the ultimate in personalized toys. So it's people that I kinda wanna satisfy their curiosity a little bit. Maybe stroke their ego a little bit. Yeah. You know, maybe impress like a special friend. [ SOUND ] 3D printing, how is it relevant to you? That is the next question that we all want to answer. Way back in the beginning almost no one had heard about 3D printing. And I think what is starting to happen is that we're now at this tipping point where it's starting to become something that most people have heard about. Then you start to investigate and at some point you go like aha, I wanna use this as well because I have these needs, I have this problem that I wanna solve, and this new technology enables me to do it. 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