Fabrication of a Human Skin Mockup with a Multilayered Concentration Map of Pigment Components Using a UV Printer

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a pipeline that reproduces human skin mockups using a UV printer by obtaining the spatial concentration map of pigments from an RGB image of human skin. The pigment concentration distributions were obtained by a separating method of skin pigment components with independent component analysis from the skin image. This method can extract the concentration of melanin and hemoglobin components, which are the main pigments that make up skin tone. Based on this concentration, we developed a procedure to reproduce a skin mockup with a multi-layered structure that is determined by mapping the absorbance of melanin and hemoglobin to CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) subtractive color mixing. In our proposed method, the multi-layered structure with different pigments in each layer contributes greatly to the accurate reproduction of skin tones. We use a UV printer because the printer is capable of layered fabrication by using UV-curable inks. As the result, subjective evaluation showed that the artificial skin reproduced by our method has a more skin-like appearance than that produced using conventional printing.

Perceptual Translucency in 3D Printing Using Surface Texture

“…Nagasawa et al thus developed a method of reproducing multilayer patches on a computer by simulating light scattering using a Monte Carlo method to generate training data [24]. Another approach reproduces the appearance of realistic skin by extracting a concentration map of pigment components from an image of human skin taken with an RGB camera and fabricating a multilayered structure that imitates actual skin [25].…”