Here was the old way: The president had to find time for someone to take a plaster cast of his face, which meant waiting, motionless, for the plaster to dry. It’s a funny image: the leader of the free world breathing through straws in his nose. But that’s how we got busts of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

The new way is much quicker and renders nasal straws unnecessary: A group of researchers from the University of Southern California scanned the president’s face with something called a “light-stage” face scanner, and then recorded him with 3D cameras and and more scanners. The whole process took five minutes.

AD

AD

Then they took the data from the scans, et voila! Forty hours later a bust was completed, and no one even had to source any marble from Italy. Lovely, yes, but with all this technology, could we maybe give the president some eyelids so he’s not giving us a spooky blank stare like a half-finished Madame Toussaud’s project?

There’s an explanation for that: The scanning and resolution technology is actually more advanced the printing technology.

“You can see down to the wrinkles in the skin and the pores on his face,” Vince Rossi, a 3D imaging specialist, told the Associated Press.

It does seem a little strange to render the president in plastic instead of marble; his bust will have more in common with one of those giant planters you can get at Home Depot than anyone probably imagined it would, but that is the story of progress. The bust was initially revealed at the White House’s first Maker Faire last week.