Surely you remember the Japanese service that allows soon-to-be parents to buy a 3D printed figurine of their sonogrammed fetus. It’s great. Now there’s a similar, more practical service called Feto 3D being offered in Brazil at Technologia Humana 3D.

Founder Jorge Roberto Lopes dos Santos originally started the project of 3D printing unborn babies for diagnostic purposes. “We work mainly to help physicians when there is some eventual possibility of malformation,” said dos Santos. But there’s another group of people that use the service: “We also work for parents who want to have the models of their fetuses in 3D.” Many of those parents are blind. Blind parents miss out on the experience of looking at the sonogram screen and seeing their embryonic progeny, but 3D printers can give them something to feel. By printing the 3D sonogram data, parents can hold an inanimate version of their belly gnome. I can only guess how powerful the sense of touch is for a blind person.

This isn’t the first 3D printed solution that aides blind people, and it won’t be the last. 3D printing is so tactile, on-demand, and customizable; it’s ideal for enabling the blind. I’m sure it will only be a few years before bionic eyes are being printed though.

h/t: The Blaze