paul debevec: we'rehere at the white house, working with thesmithsonian institution on creating a 3dpresidential portrait. and the system that we'vebrought to be part of this process is called ourmobile light stage. it's right over thereand we're setting it up right now so thatit can be used to record almost certainly the highestresolution digital model that's ever been madeof a head of state.
gunter waibel: theinspiration for the project of creating the portrait ofpresident obama really comes from the lincoln life maskin our national portrait gallery and i have a lincolnlife mask with me today. and they're called life masksbecause these were directly taken from his likeness so therewas plaster put on his face. there were two little holespoked where the nostrils were so he could still breathe andseeing that made us think, what would happen if we couldactually do that with a sitting
president using modern daytechnologies and tools to create a similarlyauthentic experience that connects us to history toconnect us to a moment in time, and connects usto a person's likeness. paul debevec: so the processshould go relatively quickly. we will invite thepresident to sit down. he will be surrounded by 50custom built led lights, eight high resolutionsports photography cameras, and an additional sixwider angle cameras;
in about one second as heholds his presidential pose. he'll be illuminated byten different lighting conditions which willchange the polarization of the light, thedirectionality of the light, and will give us everythingthat we need to understand the shape of his face andhow it transforms into illumination into theimages that we see of him. ten years ago it wasbarely possible to think this could be done.
vince rossi: so here wehave a structured light 3d camera that we use toscan the president. for handheld they're flashinga fringe pattern of light and there are stereocameras recording how that fringe pattern forms overgeometry or in this case the president's face. tom kalil: the presidentgetting his likeness scanned, as cool as that is, it is alsoabout a broader trend that's going on; and that is thethird industrial revolution.
it's the combination of thedigital world and the physical world that is allowingstudents and entrepreneurs to be able to go fromidea to prototype in the blink of an eye. it's been a few dayssince we've 3d scanned the president. and we're looking at someraw data on the screen right here so this is thedata that came out of the handheld scannersthat adam metallo
and i were usingto scanned the president. adam metallo: well this isthe first bust that's created of a head of state fromobjective 3d scanned data
3d scan to 3d print,so this is an artisticlikeness of the president. this is actually millions uponmillions of measurements that create a 3d likeness of thepresident that we can now print and make something that'snever been done before.
