FC Bayern Munich defender David Alaba 3D scanned for a trophy

3D Scanners

Artec Eva

Summary: As part of a unique plan to create a special trophy for Austria's Coca-Cola Cup junior European Football championship, a world-famous football player had his foot scanned in color 3D.

The Goal: To use a professional handheld 3D scanner to digitally capture in vivid color professional footballer David Alaba's foot in 1 minute, then process and 3D print the foot for use as a very special trophy.

Tool Used: Artec Eva

No football fan needs to be told who David Alaba is. What he or she may not yet know is that the 22-year-old Austrian, who has won the UEFA Champions League and Super Cup with Germany’s most successful team to date, Bayern Munich, is now an adopter of the 3D scanning technology, or, to be precise, his left foot is.

In mid-March Alaba’s foot was scanned with Artec Eva by our good friend Bernhard Mayerhofer of VirtuMake at the Print3Dfuture conference in Vienna. The 3D model was then printed onsite and will soon be used to create this year’s trophy for the Coca-Cola Cup, a tournament for Austria’s best junior teams.

“At first we thought it was a joke, but when we shook hands with David Alaba in December and scanned his foot, we knew it was true,” says Bernhard Mayerhofer.

If there were a 3D scanner vs. 3D printer speed battle – unlikely as that may ever be – the scanner would beat the printer 240 to 1, because the scanning of the foot took one minute and printing lasted, well, a little longer. As the speakers made their keynotes, the 3D printer got down to work, toiling hard to make a scaled copy of the foot by the end of the one-day conference. Four hours – and the job was done.

Now the 3D model of the foot will go to the designers working on the new trophy of the Coca-Cola Cup. Alaba is an official envoy of the tournament and will award the cup to the winner at the final, slated for June 21. According to the spokesperson of the Coca-Cola Company, Philipp Bodzenta, the idea behind using a replica of Alaba’s foot for the trophy’s design is to show young players that they can follow in the footsteps of their idol.

3D digitalization is actually not Alaba’s first go at being immortalized – Madame Tussauds in Vienna already houses his wax figure. Maybe one day Alaba will go on to have his 3D printed figurine made with the help of Artec’s rapid full-body scanner, Shapify Booth.

Based on “Einmal David Alaba aus dem 3D-Drucker” originally published at futurezone.at.