Have you ever wanted perfect plastic replicas of Doritos, Ruffles, and Cheetos snacks? I mean, unless you're a food stylist, I see absolutely no reason for such things existing, but well, it's 2023 and spending money on unnecessary goods is de rigueur. So, to indulge your desires, check out Lumafield, a company that, according to their website, is typically in the business of "helping engineers manufacture better products by providing unparalleled insight into them through our Neptune industrial CT scanner and Voyager analysis software." But they also "like to have some fun" with their technologies, so they decided to create snack replicas, of course.
Lumafield explains:
We chose Cheetos, Doritos, and Ruffles for their iconic and instantly recognizable shapes, and we knew our Neptune CT scanner could capture their vastly different textures and forms – the ridges of Ruffles, the triangular geometry of Doritos, and the golden dust of Cheetos. We didn't need a CT scanner to tell us that these bags are mostly air, but without CT, we never could have precisely visualized every crevice, groove, and speck of seasoning — both inside and out . . .
After creating a hyper-detailed digital model of the chips, it was time to bring them into the real world. Since our goal was to make replicas good enough to trick someone, we decided to use a Stereolithography (SLA) resin 3D printer that excels at replicating the kind of detail that our CT scanner is able to capture. We chose one chip from each variety and exported their STL files straight from our Voyager software.
Fifteen hours, three isopropyl alcohol baths, and a final cure at 70°C later, we got to hold three perfect plastic Doritos, Cheetos, and Ruffles!
To put the finishing touches on the chips, one of our talented interns offered to paint them. They started with a base coat of white, and in a matter of hours, our mouths were watering at the sight of our favorite chips.
Read more about the process here, and check out this TikTok demonstration.
