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People cope with the death of a loved one in different ways.

And one US cremation service thinks an urn that is the spitting image of a loved one's head might help mourners with their loss by commemorating a friend or family member.

The company offers 3D printed urns the same size as a person's head with realistic details, and even lets people put a family member's face on a miniature model of a super hero, if they so desire.

A US cremation service enables mourners to create a life-like bust of a loved one that functions as an urn. It uses 3D printing to transform a photo into the 3D sculpture. An urn in the image of President Obama is shown

The company in Arlington, Vermont, writes on its website: 'With personal urns, you can have a lifelike bust of your loved one that doubles as an urn for the ashes.'

To demonstrate its skills, the firm has created a President Obama urn and says that it can even make wigs for the functional busts to create a more life-like effigy of people with long hair.

'Shorter hair can be made as part of the urn itself. A solid brass nameplate is available,' it says.

The company offers 3D printed urns the same size as a person's head, with realistic details such as eye colour and stubble (shown). It also makes wigs for them, to depict longer hair realistically 

Cremation Solutions uses facial recognition software to turn two dimensional photographs of people into 3D sculptures.

The software extracts the properties of a person, such as the position of their eyes and shape of their nose, to create a 3D computer model.

The data is then used by a machine to print out the bust, by layering up tiny ceramic particles and colouring them one of thousands of colours to ensure the bust is as life like as possible. 

The firm boasts that it can 'even erase blemishes so they (a loved one) will look their best for all eternity'.

'You will never again have to worry that you might forget what your loved one looked like when you invest in one of these custom made very lifelike cremation urns,' it says.

Ashes are poured into the urn through a plug on the bottom and the urns have a heavy marble base to prevent them from toppling over and ashes spilling out.

The company says: 'One benefit to these personalised urns is that there will never be a doubt about what they are.

'With a regular urn, you are undoubtedly asked questions about what it's for, and that leads to a conversation about the deceased.

'Perfectly matching the image of your loved one, people will just assume that you had a bust made to remember them.' 

The full-sized personal urns cost $2,600 (£1,657) with a keepsake sized equivalent costing $600 (£382) and take less than two weeks to make.

The company allows people put a family member's face on a miniature model of a super hero (pictured) in order to commemorate them. It offers this service based on a photograph (pictured inset)

Another service from My3D Twin offers people the chance to create a 3D printed model of themselves (pictured). The models range in height from 5cm to 25cm and use a combination of 3D scanning and printing technology to capture an individual's features