Adding a New CompanyĪs MOCAP Design’s business grew - attracting additional customers like video game developer Ubisoft Entertainment - so did the demands on its uPrint 3D Printer. MOCAP’s success with helmet-mounted cameras has helped expand its business into new entertainment products. To overcome these time and cost barriers, MOCAP Design investigated using a 3D printer in its design and prototyping process. “Because we were hungry and wanted to do whatever it took to obtain our first sale, we changed the design and went back to the machine shop to produce the redesigned pieces, which took another three weeks.” Guidon says they quickly realized this lengthy process wouldn’t sustain the business since customers often ordered only a half-dozen units. “The machine shop approach took three to four weeks to produce a prototype, and our customer then requested additional design changes,” Miles Guidon explains. However, the company soon discovered that using conventional manufacturing methods to produce highly customized, low-volume products was costly and unsustainable.
MOCAP Design originally contracted a local machine shop to produce the support pieces for the helmet and camera that position its cameras in front of the wearer’s face. Capturing an actor’s all-important facial expressions requires a HMC customized to each actor, and MOCAP Design has perfected custom designs for motion capture cameras using 3D printing. The most popular applications for this technology are in the entertainment industries, including video games and feature films. Simulation software then displays the data as a virtual actor. Motion capture (mocap for short) is when a device captures patterns of live movement. At the time, 3D printing hadn’t crossed their minds, but 3D printers would ultimately play a large role in the company’s operations and expansion. When brothers Philip and Miles Guidon first founded MOCAP Design in West Hollywood, California, in 2011, their dream was to become the leaders in manufacturing helmet-mounted camera (HMC) products. Motion capture devices mounted on helmets, like this one by MOCAP Design, produce high-quality facial movements for the entertainment industry.
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