Why 3D printing so expensive ?

3D Printing
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1

Why 3D printing so expensive ?

If I want to print personal portrait model , how much it will cost for say 4 inches size?

2

Impossible to give you a number unless you specify what material, what method, given area of said object, etc. 3D printing isn’t expensive, honestly. Unless you’re trying to do something like a 4 inch cube in laser sintered titanium and you haven’t done simple things such as hollowing your part out.

3

One company in HK charge USD600-700 for a 4 inches human portrait using simple plastic kind of materials, is it normal ?

4

That’s not normal at all. You can buy a 3D printer for that much. Somehow I think you’re overlooking something here.

5

They say they need to ship to japan for printing , and take pictures for making that 3D human model

6

So they aren’t just printing a model. They are doing a scan. Cleaning it up and sending it out for print. Still it seems a little expensive what were you having it made out of?

3D scanning requires a $100 XBOX kinect and/or using photos and 123D catch. If you have a friend you can have them take pictures of you and then use the free software to convert into a 3D model…then you can use a service that’s available to you in HK to do the 3d printing. I’m sure there are some makers there.

Were you asking for something like converting yourself to a 3D action figure? The 3D work involved there is a little more and for the model creation I’m guessing someone would charge 2-4 hrs of labor…if they had the 3d model already. Don’t discount the cost of making the model vs printing.

7

Thanks may be its making model + printing

8

I did a self-scan with an XBOX 360 kinect and Reconstruct me. I set it on a shelf and spun in my office chair. The results were OK…enough to recognize it was me. But that only created a “bust”. It printed just fine with a couple minutes of editing in free tools (meshlab and netfabb). It’s not hard to do and if you can produce a model on your own it would be a lot easier to get someone to print it for you.

There some good info on 123d catch to do it too. Just need a digital camera/phone and you are good to go.

9

I saw a shop that offered this in shanghai recently. might be from the same company. it s set up just to scan you and offer a printed 3d model( probably in colored sandstone). they were charging a quite a bit as well. about 160usd for a 10cm tall figurine and about 1000usd for a 25~30cm one. the shop is very nicely done up so I’m sure the price covers the rent and fit out cost. plus it’s a niche market so they charge whatever they want. can probably achieve the same result with 123d and a printing service that full color prints