Asda supermarket launches 3D printing service
News: Asda is to become the first UK supermarket to offer an in-store 3D scanning and 3D printing service, allowing customers to capture and print scale models of their possessions or even themselves.
From Tuesday, customers at one Asda store in York will be able to have anything up to the size of a car scanned and reproduced as a 20-centimetre model, though the brand expects people will mostly order figurines of themselves.
The scanning process will take two minutes, using a hand-held scanner, then the digital files will be sent away to be printed ready for collection one week later. Prices will start from £40 and the models will be available in white, bronze or painted in full colour.
The service will be trialled at the York store of the Walmart subsidiary.
Printing and packaging firm The UPS Store became the first mainstream American retailer to offer in-store 3D printing in August.
Meanwhile Microsoft has partnered with MakerBot and office-supplies chain Staples has teamed up with 3D Systems to sell desktop 3D printers for the consumer market on their shop floors.
Japanese creative agency Party set up a 3D-printing photo booth in Tokyo last year and MakerBot introduced a photo booth to print 3D models of customers' faces at its New York store last November.
We had the Dezeen team scanned and 3D-printed as part of our Print Shift magazine all about additive manufacturing earlier this year.