To the dismay of many serious artists, the selfie rules the photographic arena these days, indulging and validating narcissistic bliss. 3D printing is beginning to transform even that new form of expression though with innovation in 3D scanning and reproduction of the human form in 3D printed shapeys, selfies, and a wide range of choice in figurines featuring you.
3D scanning and printing of the body can go well beyond selfies and re-creation though, as we’ve seen regarding its uses in the medical sector and other industries, where the possibilities abound. 
- Medical engineering
- Customized equipment and gear
- Retail apparel and size matching
- Bespoke clothing
- Video game characters
- Fitness tracking
Body Labs offers new capabilities for measuring area and volume of the body and body parts.
Body Labs and the BodyKit, as we’ve enjoyed reporting on before, with great interest regarding how they may transform the area of clothing for one, uses a powerful set of application program interfaces (APIs) and embeddable components for virtualizing, analyzing, and simulating any human body.
If you’ve been following the Kinematics 4D printed dress, that helps give you an idea of what we are talking about here, as Body Labs has been working closely with Nervous System in production of that piece to provide 3D body models.
We already know many of these areas are integrating 3D printing, and being swept with declarations of transformation, ideas for new concepts, and with new goals to reach. As the excitement continues to trend and progress, Body Labs is adding to their offerings with new features to BodyKit, increasing the power of 3D body modeling with:
- New capabilities regarding surface area and volume – users will be able to compute the volume and surface area of any specific body part instantly, like arms, legs, torso–or entire body.
- New applications in health and fitness can be used to discover surface volume and area in terms of measuring health, as well as estimating body composition.
- Ability to automatically rig any mesh generated by BodyKit’s instant API – with an open-source script, users can design body models rigged with Mixamo skeletons. This new facet allows for easy creation of rigs and application of animations via Maximo.
Rigged Body Mesh with Mixamo skeleton
- Easy manipulation and animation of rigged meshes which are output in standard .FBX format – for use with programs like Autodesk Maya or Blender.
Anyone who has ever endeavored to take on the daunting challenge of an anatomy course knows how detailed the subject matter is–not to mention fascinating. Throughout the ages, we’ve employed countless different ways to express the way we see the anatomical figure, and how we want to change it, fix it–or just do something as simple as take measurements and then adorn it.
While you might be a pear shape or an apple (or fighting the muffintop like most of us), one thing is for certain–each body is unique, and one size rarely fits all. With the technology of 3D printing, we’re able to customize nearly anything. Body Labs allows us a variety of different tools for managing, animating, and analyzing one of the most miraculous things on earth–the human body.
Have you created any 3D printed clothing, or do you employ their applications for animation, fitness tracking, or more? Discuss in the Body Labs forum thread over at 3DPB.com.