Body Labs Introduces Beta Version of BodyKit API to Create 3D Printed Human Models
We are already imagining the time when the greater part of clothing for people will be 3D printed in a few hours at hope using the service like Sculpteo or Shapeways. When the technology develops to the stage when the model becomes economically acceptable, the clothing industry will change for good. The industry ensures customization, so that there will be no similar garments. The form, shape and design of each piece of clothes will be especially customized by the customers and then 3D printed to suit them perfectly.
But before the industry cuts to the chase, all the sides of the printing process should be perfected. First of all they need to find materials that would be comfortable to wear them every day; secondly – the printers, which could quickly print intricate designs, and finally the software that is necessary to produce the suitable clothes. So, as you see, there is still a lot of work to do.
Based in Manhattan Body Labs has recently started a beta version of BodyKit, having thus made a large step forward in developing 3D printed clothes. They are developing the first set of APIs to simulate and visualize human bodies. The purpose of the BodyKit is not only producing 3D printed clothes, but also developing applications in the fields of healthcare, fitness, design and fashion, video games, virtual reality, ergonomics. All this will provide APIs for implantable components to supply the producers with the tools required for visualizing, simulating, and analyzing human bodies of different shapes and sizes.
The kit is made up of three parts:
- Instant API. This kind of API can predict more than 50 various tailor and anthropometric measurements grounded on the certain number of common measurements. The measurements are precise and allow for a couple of useful sizing and body shape applications. The predictions are accurate on average within 1.1 cm.
- BodyHub API allows users to develop digital 3D models that they get from measurements and scans, make up bodies databases and carry out a wide range of operations on those bodies, for example, population analysis or custom formatted-data exports.
- ShapeX. Help visualize custom body measurements using sophisticated measuring appliances. It is well-suitable with mobile, tablet and desktop devices.
When the BodyKit is integrated into the business platform, the users can do any of the following:
- Easily spread body models in different poses in a number of various file formats for 3D printing and other fields of use;
- Upload 3D body scans or particular measurements to develop a model of a particular body;
- Alter and interact with body models either from the website or from an application;
- Put the body models in different ways. Basing on the pose, wrinkles and other formations will be added automatically;
- Compare different bodies and notice changes within a certain body with time observing the heat-map metrics;
- Compare and tell how certain bodies perform well in comparison with other bodies of a certain subpopulation;
- Basing on the model count such values as the volume and the surface area of the bodies;
- Animate body models on the basis of the scan or measurements.
CEO and co-founder of Body Labs Bill O’Farrell says that the BodyKit API makes the human body a changeable platform for design and development. What they are doing is binding together the digital world and the physical self, thus quickening mass customization of very personal experiences and products. There are lots of possibilities for innovations, which can arise from the introducing to the public their body technology, in health and fitness, video gaming and apparel.
BodyKit 3D printing applications are what excites us most of all. The company is currently developing quite an intriguing application the Kinematic Dress, by the Nervous System.
Apart from the large number of 3D printed bodies lying everywhere in their office, they’ve also cooperated with Nervous System to supply them with the bodies, for which their Kinematics Dress is designed. Adapting the dress models to the particular bodies, it was easy for the developers to customize the size and shape of the dresses to the exact bodies in such a way that there was no need for humans to intervene with the process. This is what fashion of the future will be like – both design and production.
It will be interesting to see how far the developers will go with the BodyKit, especially now as APIs are so available. Think about the amount of possible applications in the 3D printing world for this platform.