from Petfig transforms photo of your pet into 3D sculptures, from 3Ders.org:

Now you can get a 3D-printed sculpture of your pet in full colour.

Japanese young artist and writer Yoshinobu Kakumrua from 3D Wave has been experimenting with 3D printing for some time. Together with his partner Roman, a 3D designer from Ukraine Kakumrua are planning to launch a new Petfig service, a simple way to make Pet figure using 3D printing.

With Petfig, all you need to do is to send the photo of your pet. Kakumrua and his partner will create a 3D model based on the photo. This digital model is then uploaded to Shapeways, that uses a 3D printer to create a physical model. The material is called sandstone, which is composed of gypsum-based powder bound together with an adhesive using an ink jet head. Sandstone is the only material which allows for photo-realistic, color designs. The 3D print is created on a Z-Corp printer and has a resolution of up to 650×540 DPI. The 3D object is then finished with cyanoacrylate (same stuff super glue is made of) sealant to ensure durability and ultimately mailed to you.

The full color sandstone 3D printed models are vivid but also brittle, so be careful when you play with it. This concept is similar as crayon creature project, which turns child’s drawings into real-life sculptures. It could save you a lot of effort, because normally you need a 3D scanner to prepare a 3D model. Maybe soon there will be software that you can use to 3D-model at home, but for now it is pretty cool to use this methods to create those little sculptures.

Here are some samples printed by Shapeways and they look pretty cute.

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Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!