A Kickstarter campaign is marketing an incredible transparent figurine showing highly detailed internal organs.

The Human Anatomy Model is quite reminiscent of the children’s toy “The Visible Man”, in which children could open up the torso and examine the internal organs to learn about how the body works. This print cannot be opened, but you can peer through the transparent body shell to see full color organs inside. The color is a lot more detailed than on the old Visible Man kit, too.

Adam Savage reviewed the product on his YouTube channel recently:

Mixed Dimensions 3D Printing

The 3D print was produced by California-based Mixed Dimensions, a company specializing in a wide variety of highly accurate full color models, all seemingly created with 3D printing technology.

Mixed Dimension’s biggest product seems to be their line of Star Trek spaceships, apparently captured in full 3D from games. This is going to be hard to believe, but they offer an astonishing 11,234 different Star Trek ships in their catalog. I suspect that many of the ships are actually duplicates, with merely the ship’s nameplate changed.

Mixed Dimensions makes a good business 3D printing these models, and apparently operates their own full color 3D print farm. Currently they operate three Mimaki 3DUJ-553, units, which I have personally seen. These machines can produce full color textured objects in the most insane level of detail. With the right 3D model, these machines can produce objects that can easily be confused for a “real” object.

One of the capabilities of the Mimaki device is the ability to 3D print fully transparent material, which has been leveraged extensively in the Human Anatomy Model.

Human Anatomy Model Options

The Kickstarter project offers a variety of anatomy print options, including versions that are full skin, with muscles or transparent showing organs. A 5” (13cm) version is priced at only US$30, and there are other sizes available up to huge 12” (30.5cm) models for US$325.

There are also several combination offers available, and even a special opportunity to obtain the model in a yoga pose.

Should the campaign attract sufficient interest, Mixed Dimensions intends on adding additional poses and ethnicity options for requestors.

Full Color 3D Printing In Industry

Much of 3D printing is focused on producing mechanical parts, and the utility of full color 3D printing is often casually dismissed in the industry. I think this is a misguided attitude, as there are always uses for a technology, they just might not be your usage.

In this case we see a company leveraging powerful full color 3D printing capability and making a good business from it. Full color 3D printing is indeed a useful technology, perhaps not quite as widespread as mono-color 3D printing usage.

Via Kickstarter, Mixed Dimensions and Mimaki US