3D Laser Scanning Makes A Great Fake Painting
Real Replicas with 3D laser scanning services
Anyone out there ever been scammed? It is not fun. You always start out thinking you are getting a steal. In the end, you end up getting chewed up and spit out like a wad of tobacco. I had that happen a couple of times living overseas. It happens a lot in places that don’t really care about intellectual property rights. You might find an iPhone online selling for only two-thirds of the normal price. It is kind of a sickening feeling when you get cheated. The greater the loss, the greater the sickening gut grinding feeling that you get. You can just imagine what the guy who buys a fake Picasso must feel when he discovers that his treasure is a fake. Now with today’s technology the fakes are getting a lot less easier to detect. In fact, 3D laser scanning services technology can make near exact replicas of famous paintings.
Doing the Impossible with 3D laser scanning
There is a company called FormArt that is actually able to make an almost exact replica of famous art. First of all, it should be made clear that this company is not out to rip people off. If they were, they probably would not want any of this to be made known to the public. If they were scammers, then the only thing they would be telling us is that they have some authentic paintings for sale. The reason they are doing this is, well, because they can now do what has always seemed impossible. Another reason is so that it will be much easier to restore paintings if they can get an exact digital copy of a painting. If a painting gets damaged, restoration can be much easier if they can analyze a near exact replica made by 3D laser scanning services.
What we can do with a fake
What makes a 3D laser scanned replica of a Van Gogh painting different from a super high quality print of the same thing? The difference is that a real painting has 3 dimensions. We often don’t think of paintings that way since they are basically flat. If you look at it real close, though, you notice that every brush stroke has texture. So, in order to truly duplicating a painting, you would need to include the texture in order for it to look like the real thing. Now, with 3D laser scanning services, engineers like those at FormArt are able to capture the exact shape of the surface of the painting. This makes it possible, using 3D printing, to make that near exact copy. It also gives art experts a way to determine if a fake is a fake, if a painting appears after getting stolen from a museum. It would be good to have a digital copy on file of famous artwork, like The Pigeon with Green Peas painting that was stolen in 2010 from the Parisian Museum of Modern Art. Thieves would have a much more difficult time getting some money for it if some 3D laser scanning services were done on that painting.
The word “fake” is a turn off, but when it comes to FormArt, we might just make an exception. Of course if you look up close with a magnifying glass, you can still tell that 3D printed paintings are not the real deal. No real need to worry that some company will go rogue and start selling fakes for the real price. Selling portions of reproduced artwork might be a good souvenir business though.