3D Scanned Climbing Holds

I saw Aidan Roberts' Youtube video where he made a replica of Burden of Dreams, and it inspired me to check out 3D scanning. Climbers have been making replicas to train for outdoor problems, and technology has gotten to the point where we can make nearly exact copies. Some people push back against making these copies, saying that it devalues what it means to flash a climb. They might be right. However, I would pay a lot of money if it meant that I could train for Soul Slinger V9 at home. To me, that's better than driving 6 hours to Bishop just to fail and drive another 6 hours home feeling defeated. I would probably pay for every V-level until I reach my genetic limit. 

I modeled up a set of holds from a local climb this week. I'm planning to turn them into polyurethane holds this month. What do you guys think about these things? Would climbing replicas help you send your projects? Do you want a set of full scale replica climbing holds? Would it be interesting to put these holds on something like a hangboard? Are scanned replicas just a gimmick? What would help you send your projects?

Dunno whether you might actually defeat the purpose by creating false muscle memory due to different body positioning and different friction and sharpness compared to the original rock. Looks cool though. 

I got my hands on some scanned-and-3d-printed holds on a recent trade fair - pretty nice feel, definitely not something I'd buy for the gym though. Too gimmicky and not versatile enough for the price. Probably something to frame and put up on a wall ("look, that's the crux hold from my last proj") to impress whoever might be impressed by that ...

Joe Say'n wrote:

Dunno whether you might actually defeat the purpose by creating false muscle memory due to different body positioning and different friction and sharpness compared to the original rock. Looks cool though. 

I got my hands on some scanned-and-3d-printed holds on a recent trade fair - pretty nice feel, definitely not something I'd buy for the gym though. Too gimmicky and not versatile enough for the price. Probably something to frame and put up on a wall ("look, that's the crux hold from my last proj") to impress whoever might be impressed by that ...

That's a good point, the scans are only so accurate and they cannot get every detail. Even outdoors the friction will change a lot with temperature. 

I ordered a 3d-printed hold that I scanned a few weeks ago. The quality doesn't feel like something I would trust on a wall. It would be better to use the 3d-printed part to make a mold and then pour resin to get something more solid. 

It's probably not worth making a hold set for an entire climb. I think I'll still make holds for the crux moves, so that I can hang from them and do pullups lol.

I think it’d be really cool to sell a set of holds from like the top 10 most iconic boulders and feature them at a gym. Problem is they’d be too hard for pretty much everybody so you’d have to make it easier by changing steepness or angles of holds or switching out feet.

On the other hand, these holds would probably just end up getting mixed into the hold bins after the novelty wears off

I agree with the impracticality of actual replicas, especially for commercial gym setting. That being said, mimic makes some really cool products. 

https://www.mimicholds.com/

Maybe it could work if we found a climb for each grade, where the wall face is flat, with a constant angle like 40 degrees, doesn't have a cruxy top out, ends in a jug, and can fit on a 12x12 ft wall. Then we scatter a bunch of other holds on it to basically make a kilter board with replicas as benchmarks. Would probably have to search every national park to find a climb V1 through V15 that would fit on this board

To me 3D scanned holds seem like a total gimmick.

I prefer training on ergonomically designed holds which don't destroy my skin or increase the risk of finger injury by unnecessarily loading separate fingers. 

I don't think anyone would need the kind of specificity that 3D scanned holds would give you if you're not training for something at the cutting edge of human performance.

Kevin, I think it sounds like a cool idea, go with it. Time and effort will dictate the nuanced adjustments that are useful. Disregard the naysayers,... they have no imagination, or grounding in reality,.. At one time,.. indoor climbing gyms were nonexistent,.. as were bouldering pads,... don't hear too many complaints about those these days....

Kevin Siazon wrote:

However, I would pay a lot of money if it meant that I could train for Soul Slinger V9 at home. To me, that's better than driving 6 hours to Bishop just to fail and drive another 6 hours home feeling defeated. I would probably pay for every V-level until I reach my genetic limit. 

You are truly taking grade chasing to a new level and I don't mean that in a good way.  To be blunt, this mentality and approach might push you ahead in the short run but you're shooting yourself in the foot in the long run.  If you're going to put a lot of effort into improving your climbing... you should put that effort in across the board.  Start training out weaknesses, improving at the styles you're not as strong at, and improving your technique.  You're far more likely to send this project, and your future projects if you improve yourself across the board instead of in one specific area.  

What if your V10 project isn't a slightly overhung, glassy, pinchy/crimpy/slope-y granite problem?  You'll have put all this work into training for that one style for... nothing.

I think 3D scanning could be an interesting tool to see how holds change over time. If you scan something today and compare it to a scan in 20 years you could see how much something gets polished, if anything broke, how surface roughness of a certain region has changed, etc. 

Shawn S wrote:

I think 3D scanning could be an interesting tool to see how holds change over time. If you scan something today and compare it to a scan in 20 years you could see how much something gets polished, if anything broke, how surface roughness of a certain region has changed, etc. 

Good idea. You could also use it as a way to preserve climbing history before a hold breaks or an entire wall comes down.

1. I’ve had the idea that a 3D scan of splitter cracks     Could be used to re create both Boulder problems as well as full pitches broken into sections.   Printing or cnc milled out of foam you’d want to get a silicone copy the void of the crack along with maybe a foot of the face on either side of it. Then attach them to the inside of of a concrete form for a retaining or laid  out a couple feet apart and  face down on the slab floor where a tilt up concrete slab wall is poured  over them. After standing the wall or removing the form from the face of a retaining wall. You’d just pull the silicone plugs out of the cracks leaving rows and rows of iconic splitter cracks lined up ready to climb.  Shit you could probably place gear in them and lead climb taller ones.  A tilt up warehouse climbing gym building could have 20 -30 cracks in each wall  ready to go before you even start work on building standard climbing gym walls built as towers on the slab floor.  I could see a 12’ tall 50’ long vertical bouldering walls along side of local skate parks.

Kevin Siazon wrote:

I saw Aidan Roberts' Youtube video where he made a replica of Burden of Dreams

I saw this too and have been wondering about it. Mostly as a curiosity.

Similarly, I saw a video of Dave Macleod's where he mocked up his training wall for a crux that he was working on. In the video he had side by side comparison of him climbing the mock up and the actual climb. The similarity of his body positioning was astounding, though I think that the actual holds were just as close as he could get with his available holds.

I think scans are cool honestly. I tried it once, to make a replica of The Chief at Black Mountain (V4). 3D printed the first couple of holds using Nylon and PLA. Results were ok

The limit is really the scanner itself, and not just resolution though that is one. The human hand can feel texture changes down to 13 nanometer, which far exceeds any mobile scanner or 3D printer (though a high end cnc machine can get appreciable close, we dont need to replicate to the nM level)

3D scanners, conventional ones, all work in a similar fashion. Its a grid overlay on a surface and then the distortions on the grid are used to duplicate the form of the object. The extend that different scanners can use this varies, by employing more cameras, better lighting, rotation of the object, etc but the principle is the same. Meaning that incut features are impossible to scan. For climbing holds this is a huge negative. Even small crimps can have tiny incuts which wont scan but change the feel of the hold. Not pockets, no cracks, etc

Overall its more of a cool gimmick that can spark interest but I'd still just place my time on good setters who know how to replicate movement rather than exact holds. The texture on holds normally is done by adding salt or additives to the mold as its set, but machining out texture is extremely difficult even in the normal fabrication industry. 

I'd still take a set though 

I just watched a live steam of Will Bossi on the real Burden of Dreams. Judging from his first days performance I'd say that for him, on this particular boulder, the replica was certainly worth while. A trip to Finland seems pretty major to me so anything to give you a head start would be worth quite a bit. He thought that certain moves on the actual boulder were easier than the replica due to much better friction.

Kevin Siazon wrote:

However, I would pay a lot of money if it meant that I could train for Soul Slinger V9 at home. 

What amount of money are we talking about here? Just profane or really offensive?

lekha nani wrote:

Hi all,

I am interested in 3d printing rock climbing holds as a souvenir and not for actual climbing. I'm after something about 4cm to 6cm in length and that has the "fuzzy/grippy" texture of a climbing hold and still feels somewhat dense/not hollow.

Is something like this doable? Am I able to recreate this sort of texture and density? Any general advice is appreciated.

I have attached a couple of pictures of what I am after for reference.

I can't see the pictures, but it's doable. If you have a specific hold in mind, you can download a free 3D scan app to make a 3D model of the hold. Once you have that, you can send it over to Xometry and they will make the hold using an SLS style 3D printer. It'll most likely be less than $100 for the size you're asking. It feels kind of like sandstone, but it's not very heavy. If you want something denser then you could go with polyurethane but it will be more expensive.

Stefan Jacobsen wrote:

What amount of money are we talking about here? Just profane or really offensive?

At the time I was thinking like a thousand dollars for a full climb. Hardest I've done is V7 outdoors. So I was thinking $8000 to train boulders from V8 up to V15 lol

I think that the hold scanning is pretty cool, but let's not forget the 'Burdon' really lent itself to this because it is so close to a perfect plane and even then Will was pointing out angle discrepancies on the holds. Anything featured would be much harder to duplicate.