The first-ever 3-D printed presidential bust went on display on Tuesday, Dec.2, in the Smithsonian Castle building in Washington, D.C.
President Obama gets first-ever 3D printed portraitU.S.President Barack Obama has become the first president ever to have a 3D-printed portrait. Check out how it was made.
The White House released a YouTube video Tuesday of the President sitting for his historic portrait session when a Smithsonian-led team visited the White House in June.
According to the White House, the bust of President Obama was created by a Smithsonian-led team of 3-D digital-imaging specialists, Autodesk and 3D Systems, in collaboration with the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies. It took two different technologically sophisticated 3-D documentation processes to generate the data needed to create this portrait. The president was flashed with 50 custom-built LED lights that flickered precisely to create ten different lighting conditions in just one second. Photos were taken by eight high-resolution cameras designed for sports and six wider-angle cameras. Technicians also scanned Obama with two handheld structured-light 3-D scanners.
The inspiration from the project came from the Lincoln life mask housed in the National Portrait Gallery.
The life mask of Lincoln was taken February 11, 1865, a day before Lincoln’s 56th birthday, by sculptor Clark Mills. The mask you see is a 1917 copy from the casting given to the Smithsonian in 1889 by the sculptor’s son.
Story compiled with the information from the White House and the Smithsonian.