Body Shop

Synthespians, or virtual actors, have been lurking around for years, but the technology has hardly taken off. That’s because the grueling process of transforming a person into pixels involves hours of crunching and modeling raw data. And time is money: A high-end full-body scan costs around $10,000. But this year, the Palo Alto, California-based (and […]

Synthespians, or virtual actors, have been lurking around for years, but the technology has hardly taken off. That's because the grueling process of transforming a person into pixels involves hours of crunching and modeling raw data. And time is money: A high-end full-body scan costs around $10,000. But this year, the Palo Alto, California-based (and Paul Allen-backed) Paraform launched a discount body shop. Its Digital Human Catalog (www.paraform.com) contains several dozen virtual people varying in age, sex, and ethnicity. Now, animators without a blockbuster budget can license a body from Paraform for $500 to $1,500 a pop - meaning the catalog is both of the people and for the people.

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Body Shop
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