Welcome to the World of 3D Art Reproduction

Erin Hanson is the recognized pioneer of the world of 3D art reproduction. She is the first artist to create realistic, 3-D printed reproductions of original oil paintings: Limited Edition 3D Textured Replicas.

"While the whole world is talking about the possibilities that the latest 3D technology offers, there is one artist in San Diego who is already doing it. When we first had contact with Erin Hanson in March of this year, none of us would have thought that she would become a pioneer in printing 3D art reproduction in this short time. We are very proud our Scanner is a part of the workflow used to make such realistic reproductions of her amazing paintings." - Martin Paffrath, CEO Cruse Scanners, Germany.

This incredible fine art print is Erin’s high-tech answer to the growing demand for textured prints. Each replica faithfully duplicates every brush stroke's color and feel, using cutting-edge, three-dimensional scanning technology and multi-layered printing to capture every aspect of the original painting.

While previous articles have discussed the replicas themselves, we wanted to take this opportunity to share the technical details of Erin’s state-of-the-art reproductions.

The Newest Addition to The Erin Hanson Team: Our CRUSE Synchron Table Scanner

When a painting is selected for 3D printing, it must go through a safe and effective scanning process to capture every minute detail - from the painterly brush strokes to the luminous colors. This is done with the latest in 3D-capture technology: the CRUSE Synchron Table Scanner.

This machine now dominates an entire room in our warehouse. The enormous bulk of this machine is not surprising, as it has to accommodate Erin’s paintings - no matter the size of the work. Additionally, it is set up so that original paintings can be gently laid, face-up, to be scanned under five directions of temperature-controlled, precise, and homogeneous LED lamps.

The scanning process is completed using several scans taken at resolutions up to 2,000 dpi. State-of-the-art technology offers capture at 15,000 pixels, at 5.6 microns. Deliberate changes in the lighting situation allow us to record the texture found in an Erin Hanson originals, providing the necessary information to our printer to create 3D Textured Replicas. Each 3D file is several gigabytes in size, and we purchased two custom-built, super-speed computers to handle the graphics.

The 3D scanner also captures Erin Hanson originals in 48-bit color, capturing literally trillions of colors per scan. For comparison, Photoshop usually processes images in 24-bit color from a Canon 5D digital camera, so the large format CRUSE scanner is capturing 2 times more color information than a standard high-end camera.

Clearly, with all of the data the scanner captures, software must accompany the system to allow this detailed information to be used, processed, and printed.

The CRUSE design software suite allows us to take all of the image capture information and “stack” the images, creating a textured image that we can see on our computer screens, and then send to a 3D printer for replication. This software allows Erin to pre-qualify the image for accuracy and provides us with the opportunity to use 3D scanning for more in-depth texture and color capture on our 2D fine art prints, as well as on our new 3D Textured Replicas.

Printing an Erin Hanson 3D Textured Replica

There are only two printers in the world who are on the cutting-edge of 3D print technology in the field of fine art reproduction: Canon and SwissQ. Both printers use seven colors of ink (CMYK plus three additional colors) for incredible color reproduction. This ink can be built up layer-by-layer, because each layer is instantly cured to a hard finish using UV light. Layers applied in this way can create textures up to 2 cm tall. The replicas are printed on dibond (hard aluminum panels), to ensure a stable substrate for the texture application.

This is how the texture is built up to create an Erin Hanson 3D Textured Replica:

First, the 3D model that was sent to the printer from the design suite is sliced into minute layers, only 0.15 mm thick, which are printed using UV-cured ink that slowly builds up texture, micro-layer by micro-layer. After about 18 layers of ink, the print texture accurately matches the texture of the original oil painting.

Once the texture layer is built up, the color is printed over the top of the texture layer.

Finally, after the color layer is applied, a layer of varnish is printed onto the finished print, making it match the gleam and gloss of an original oil painting more closely.

Erin Hanson - On the Cutting Edge of 3D Art Reproduction

As an artist, Erin always seeks to share the best and most accurate reproduction of her works. 3D scanning and printing technology has allowed Erin to access the most faithful reproduction of her original artwork, duplicating the texture and color of an original as closely as possible.

As Cruse Scanner CEO, Martin Paffrath, commented, "While the whole world is talking about the possibilities that the latest technology offers, there is one artist in San Diego who is already doing it. When we first had contact with Erin Hanson in March of this year, none of us would have thought that she would become a pioneer in printing 3D art reproduction in this short time. We are very proud our Scanner is a part of the workflow used to make such realistic reproductions of her amazing paintings."

Here at the Erin Hanson Gallery, we couldn’t be more excited to provide every one of our collectors and fans with the opportunity to own a 3D Textured Replica of an Erin Hanson original painting.

Click here to browse our selection of 3D Textured Replicas.