Admit it. You’ve taken a Selfie. Or 127 according to Instagram. And you probably liked it. Maybe you’ve even mastered how to avoid blurry big upper arms and awkward closeups. Looking to take it to the next level in time for next year’s #SelfieOlympics? Meet the #3DSelfie by Shapeways, and welcome to the future.

We’ve have spent the last few months 3D scanning the excited crowds at the Museum of Art and Design here in New York and delighting creatives from around the world. In just 3 minutes, far less time than it used to take film to process or photos to download over dialup, you can be liberated from the 2D confines of traditional selfies and rendered in all your 3D glory. Here’s a teaser of what the experience is like, and you can join us this Friday to experience the technology hands on. 

Regardless of your opinion on front facing camera poses, it would be hard not to notice the rise in the selfie’s popularity. In honor of #MuseumSelfie day, we decided to take a closer look. In 1839, Robert Cornelius, coincidentally also a dutch immigrant (Shapeways was started in Eindhoven, NL), takes the first selfie, also one of the first photographs ever taken.

Lying dormant for nearly two centuries, the term “selfie” doesn’t make it’s internet debut in global vernacular until 2002, in an Australian forum. By the end of 2013, “selfie” was deemed “word of the year ” and had made it’s way into the Oxford English Dictionary.
The selfie is going 3D, are you?