I 3D scanned a couple of people and I got the miniatures back. But they where all super dark...so what's wrong with my files? Cause the colors on my screen where great. Please help because i really want to sell these miniatures but i can't if they all turn back close to black.... Kind Regards, Ritchie
Did you check the colors only in your scanning/modeling software, or did you also view the exported file (presumably vrml or x3d?) that you uploaded for printing ? One potential gotcha is that there are two ways of defining colors - as a separate texture image, or as color values directly applied to the mesh points of the geometry. So if the model was inadvertently created with both the skin texture and some default (black or otherwise dark) "vertex color", the two sets of color information would add up to some unexpectedly dark skin tone. Also do you see the dark colors in the preview on shapeways, or only in the finished prints ? The color printing uses a relatively simple inkjet printhead to color the off-white gypsum, so its color correctness is much poorer than what you would get from a modern six-color photo printer. Can you post a picture of the delinquent and/or make a model file publicly visible ?
Compare the printed model here https://shpws.me/ouWq with the color definition(s) in the picture I've uploaded with it. The Shapeways printers (a year ago) were printing a good bit darker than on-screen colors. One simple thing to do is brighten up your your color choices.
Dear Mkroeker, I checked the colors in the software of the scanner, Rhino 3D and shapeways. In all the colors were just fine for print. So there is clearly something else im missing...but what? I hope after seeing the pictures you will be able to shed more light on the problem. There is another thing. When i export to vrml there is no texture or png file added. I recon since the color info is inside the coordinates of the vertices there is no texture export. Might this be part of the problem? If things are still unclear about the problem i could send you one of the files. Super thanks for your quick reply, Kind Regards, Ritchie
Dear stonysmith, In reply to Mkroeker I added some pictures maybe this clears things up for you. Kind regards, Ritchie
Using "vertex colors" instead of a texture should not be a problem - my worry was just that you might have inadvertently used both methods together. Suggest you email these pictures to service@shapeways.com - while the printers are said to have some problems with light skin tones, I doubt that it is usually that bad - maybe the technicians doing the printing and QA just thought your model was a handsome north african ? On the other hand, the shapeways screenshot already does look a good bit darker than what your software showed - make sure that you do not have any special lighting turned on in your software, and check the vrml file with a separate viewer such as view3dscene to make sure it really exported what you saw. (BTW as you seem to be somewhere in the Netherlands, it might be worthwhile for you to take one of their regular factory tours in Eindhoven to see this type of printer in action and perhaps learn more about its capabilities and limitations as seen by shapeways staff ?)
Yeah, see what service has to say. That looks to me like a bad print run. The vivid patch of blue on the left thigh is completely gone in the print. So that right there indicates a bad pint run since it is fully visible in the Shapeways default render. This happens from time to time with Shapeways color prints. However, no need for alarm, Shapeways is very good about making customers happy, so they will reprint them and send them to you at no cost to you.