Natural looking 3D printed skin is in the near future 11/27/2013 - 00:00 Researchers at the University of Liverpool are developing synthetic skin that can be produced on a 3D printer and matched to a person based on their age, gender and ethnic group.3D printing is a new science, thought to have significant potential for developments in medicine. Printers are relatively cheap and can be programmed with almost any variation of designs – all without the need for a donor or a factory producing artificial parts. Efforts at producing skin, however, have so far failed to produce a product that looks realistic enough to be indistinguishable from the real thing.Working alongside colleagues at the University of Manchester, Liverpool researchers are now developing 3D image processing and skin modelling techniques that can copy a person’s skin so that it appears natural, whatever light it is shown in.
