When the iPhone 12 Pro was officially announced with it's LiDAR sensor, I had to have one. I'd been following the rumors regarding this iPhone's release, and I was astonished by the prospect of having a 3D scanner I could carry with me anywhere. Ultimately, I got one, and shortly after recieving it, I used it to scan and 3D printed myself.

First, I used the iPhone 12 Pro with the Heges scanning app to get a 3D scan of myself. I exported this scan to the STL format. (In reality, my mom scanned me and was very patient as I asked her to retry it many times to get it as clean as possible). I made the mistake of leaving my glasses on during scanning which is why you see a small line across my cheek and around my eyes.

Next, I used Blender to clean up the extranous bits from the scan. LiDAR picks up a bit of noise which results in those small artifacts you see throughout the STL. Then, I used Cura to slice the STL for printing. Finally, I 3D printed it on a Monoprice Select Mini V2 3D printer. Here is the result:

This was a fun project that made me consider the implications of having a 3D scan of myself. I find it a little strange to look at, and I wonder if someone mischievous could use this tecnique to get into a phone that unlocks using face-scanning technology. Perhaps that would be fun to experiment with in a future project...