Print yourself as a gummi bear at Tokyo's FabCafe

3D printers help couples make the ultimate romantic gesture

By Sam Byford on March 22, 2013 10:20 am @345triangle 37Comments

There's no shortage of cafes in Tokyo, but FabCafe has a little more on its menu than most. Opened just over a year ago, the establishment offers its own laser cutter that customers can rent by the hour, and also collaborates with the 3D printer showroom upstairs. The showroom is called Cube and features several printers made by South Carolina-based 3D Systems, making FabCafe a hot spot in Tokyo for anyone who needs something fabricated but can't justify the multi-thousand dollar outlay on a machine of their own.

But FabCafe and Cube's collaborations stretch beyond the pragmatic and veer into the surreal. Recently the two ran a promotion where female customers could create Valentines Day chocolates made from 3D-printed molds of their own faces; in Japan, Valentines Day is exclusively a holiday for women to give chocolates and other gifts to men. However, March 14th marks White Day, where the men must reciprocate the offer to their partners. What to do for the girl that gave you her own edible face? Well, FabCafe had the obvious answer — 3D-print your whole body in the form of gummi sweets. We went along to see exactly how this went down.

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FabCafe sits just a few minutes down the street from the famous scramble crossing in Tokyo's hip Shibuya district.
Kazue Nakata from FabCafe poses with her 3D-printed chocolate doppelgänger.
There were nine spots available to create a gummi clone, and each customer paid 6,000 yen (about $63) for the privilege. Here, one stands in a 3D body scanner, waiting for the first step of the process to begin.
The customer poses as the 3D body scanner bathes him in light from all four directions.
Software shows the initial results of the scan.
Using a Phantom Omni haptic device, the customer is able to virtually sculpt his own 3D model.
Freeform software lets the customer edit out any imperfections captured by the body scanner.
One week after the scanning and editing workshop, customers returned to see the results of their handiwork.
FabCafe created these molds from the 3D-printed silicone model.
The next step — choose your flavor. This is cola.
The gummi sweet begins to take shape.
One customer admires his handiwork, but the cola gummi mix proved a little uncooperative.
While the customers waited for their sweets to set, Yuji Hara from K's Design Lab explained how they could print a stand for their body models.
The stands were made using 3D Systems' Cube printer, which sells for around $1,300.
A customer checks out the new standing feature of his model.
With the gummi mixture set, it's time to remove the sweets from the mold. This lime-flavored one turned out a little better than its cola brother.
With the gummi sweets complete, they were set down on miniature furniture for a photoshoot.