Chinese mortuary uses 3D printing to help rebuild the faces of accident victims
- Undertakers in Guangzhou say the technique allows them to more accurately reconstruct the features of people who were badly disfigured in accidents
A mortuary in southern China has started using 3D printing technology to restore the faces of accident victims before their funerals.
Traditionally, Chinese mourners prefer open casket funerals where they can pay their last respects to the dead face-to-face, but accidents such as fires and road crashes often leave the deceased badly disfigured, compounding the grief of their families.
But now the Guangzhou Funeral Service Centre has started using the technology to reconstruct the faces of the dead based on their photographs.
One embalmer at the mortuary, surnamed Liu, said that in the past they had struggled to make an accurate reconstruction of their facial features.
“We are not professional sculptors, we had only the deceased’s pictures to look at, and tried our best to make it look similar to the real person,” he told Southern Daily, a local newspaper.