To some degree, we have all experienced 3-D printing, or 'additive manufacturing'. No? Then you soon will. And creating a solid object in an empty space is not alchemy, it's science.

3-D Printing is a process that can print in plastic, wax, resin, wood, concrete, carbon fibre, and many other materials. The process prints layer by layer. Computer design software creates 3-D drawings which create  3-D prints, or objects. 3-D laser scanning does the same. 3-D Printing is more effective than mould-making when it comes to complex shapes. Indeed, it builds complex shapes as a whole, not pieces to be assembled. 

Companies such as Plowman Craven in Hertfordshire, UK, specialize in 3-D laser scanning - the scanning of an existing object, or of a space, collecting millions of measurements in three dimensions called point clouds - with applications in heritage recording, building surveys, structural monitoring, modelling and visual effects as seen in Guardians of the Galaxy.

And this relates to the study of hominids? Actually yes; there is something very attractive about our latest technologies shedding light on our oldest artefacts. 

Homo erectus
KNMWT 15000 c
Age approx. 1.53 Million Years. Digital Capture: Photogrammetry
Nariokotome Boy or Turkana Boy

A replica of a 1.9 million year old Homo habilis skull has been made, with a polymer resin, from a 3-D printer, under the auspices of the Turkana Basin Institute and the National Museums of Kenya. They teamed up with a software firm to establish a website to showcase many of the iconic fossils discovered in East Africa. Files to print 3-D copies for educational purposes can be downloaded from the site. The website also has excellent interactive pages to demonstrate the fossils, using photogrammetry, such as the Homo erectus skull shown above. 

For research and educational purposes, the possibilities are limitless. Not just shaping our future, but explaining our past. 

Choose your fossil to examine in our Origins section:

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/origins/index.php

To visit African Fossils:

http://www.africanfossils.org