A brain model in a three-dimensional or 3D printer. (Photo : Getty Images)
For deaths associated with fire or vehicular accident or any incident that caused the disfiguration of the face or the loss of a body part, families may choose to have the coffin of their loved one closed.
Others might even resort to cremation.
There is now, however, something that can be done about it that will allow families, friends and other people to see, for the last time, the remains of someone who already passed away.
3D printing or additive manufacturing can provide a missing ear, fix a damaged nose, or make a corpse to look like a live person sleeping.
Works like magic, people might say.
The website 3Dprinting.com provides a simple definition of what 3D printing is about: “a process of making three-dimensional solid objects from a digital file.”
Armand Valdes, a video producer at Mashable, said that it is also called additive manufacturing because through it, “an object is created by adding material layer by layer.”
Sand, edible food, precious metals, animal cells--even salt and dirt--can be used as source materials in 3D printing, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The Shanghai Longhua Funeral Home set up a 3D printing facility on March 30, reported Shanghai Daily.
Liu Fengming, an official from the Shanghai Funeral and Interment Service Center, said that makeup cannot anymore do anything when it comes to “incomplete faces or bodies.”
Liu added that the 3D printing may take about a week, with “a 95 percent success rate.”
Longhua charges not more than 10,000 yuan or approximately $1,500 for partial repairs on a corpse.
Founded in 1954, this funeral parlor in Xuhui District could be the first one to use 3D printing technologies, according to CRIEnglish.
Another funeral parlor in Shanghai, this time in Minhang District, can do wonders on human ashes.
For those families who had the remains of their relations cremated, Yishan Funeral Parlor offers them a unique service where it will turn the ashes into “life crystals,” according to Shanghai Daily.
Yishan asks for 17,900 yuan (about $2,700) for its one-of-a-kind service.
