3D Printout of an Avatar... how?

[Aries Hausdorff]

At this time I am trying to make a 3D printout of my avatars as figures for my cupboard.

So far I got frustrated by programs like avastar which basically just work with bits of an avatar, and with websites that talk about companies that retreated from SL like 5 years ago.

In the real world we use a series of 2D photos to make a 3d model out of them, or we use a fixed 2-points of view approach plus structured light.

Whilst the structured light approach might be too difficult to handle, I think it should be possible to reconstruct an avatar into a 3D model from a series of pictures. That way, and that's the most important thing I guess, we don't touch the scritps or the inner structures of an avatar, which ought to satisfy the initial designers wishes.

 

Has anybody ever tried this, or knows about a working alternative like an .stl exporter?

 

Any help or advice welcome!

Sincerely

Aries Hausdorff

[Amethyst Jetaime]

There is no way to do what you want to do as it is against the TOS, unless you personally created everything about your avatar, shape, skin, hair, eyes, any clothing and attachments.  You don't have the copyright owners' permission and are prohibited by the permission system from exporting anything not of your own creation.

[Teagan Tobias]

The ToS allows you to take photos of your avatar, so you can print the photos. What part of the ToS says it can't be printed in 3D?

[Amethyst Jetaime]

To do that the OP wants to export his avatar out of SL as a 3D model to use for the printing.  If he can do it using just photos, then there is no problem.

Section 2.2  of the TOS

...

Linden Lab provides access to Linden In-World Content and hereby grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, limited, revocable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Linden In-World Content solely In-World as permitted through the normal functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service, except that photographs, images, films, and videos of Linden In-World Content may be used in other areas of and outside the Service as provided in our Snapshot and Machinima Policy. To be clear, and without limiting the foregoing, you may not use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display or perform any Linden In-World Content, whether modified by you or not, outside the virtual world environment of the Service except as provided in the Snapshot and Machinima Policy or as expressly agreed upon in a written agreement with Linden Lab. The foregoing license is referred to as a "Linden In-World Content License." You acknowledge that when you receive a Linden In-World Content License you do not acquire ownership of any copies of the Content, or transfer of any copyright or other intellectual property rights in the Content.

[Aries Hausdorff]

An .stl file would cary only the "hull" data, the overall combined appearance of all components.

Whilst that should be okay accordingto the TOS I do see that there would be a problem with mesh avatars, as basically it might be possible to use the .stl file of the naked body to import back into SL as a mesh.

As I don't have any mesh components I didn't thought about that. With a normal avatar body the problem would not exist as besically you would only have to note down all settings from the avatar editor and enter them on a new shape-file , a process completely legal, to get an identical body to work with.

And no-mod components you cannot dissassemble into their constituent components anyway, so you wouldn't get at the sub-parts to rebuild the item from the .stl file, but only a static .stl that'd leave out all transparents, would have static elements instead of flexibles, and so on, making the .stl file mostly pointless for reimport to Second Life, but perfectly suited for a 3D print.

I'm currently looking into programs capable of converting a series of pictures into a 3d model, which would allow me to generate a 3d printable file, but there's a lot of things yet unclear to me.

However it seems as if

http://www.arc3d.be/

and

http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/

might be solutions to my problem, working off plain pictures ( and thus also, hopefully, SL screenshots). Taking screenshots of the avatar in a white environment should do the trick for me I hope.

 

[CyberWoLfman]

I'm assuming you'd want something like an action figure, but, without movable limbs, head, or a Kung-Fu grip, or somesuch. Not sure how well that would turn out in the current level of technology. Perhaps in another few years?