When I first wrote about 3D printing start-up company, 3Distributed, back in August, having spoken to Andrew Shepherd-Waring, one of the company’s founders, he hinted that there was plenty more to come. He wasn’t wrong! Since that time, the company has launched its lithophane service, as well as announcing that it accepts Bitcoins. Now we have even more visibility on what this London-based company is doing. Today, the company has introduced another service that it will be offering — Printscape 3D.
The premise behind this service is to use contemporary 3D printing technology to fabricate perfect physical replicas of 3D scanned landscape data. 3Distributed’s claim is that is can take 3D CAD or scan data to create landscapes of any size, but with particular experience in large-scale models.
The first print of this nature undertaken by Printscape 3D was installed recently at Petworth House in West Sussex as the centre-piece of a new exhibit detailing archaeological research in the grounds. The installation can be seen in-situ below:
This fully 3D printed model comprises 220 sections, which, when fitted together measures some 3.2 m by 2.2 m at its widest points and was created from aerial scan data (LiDAR). The company has been unable to find any other 3D printed landscapes on this scale and is therefore making a Guinness world record claim to that effect, the results of which are pending. The company intends to provide similar such prints to other museum exhibitions, architects and city planners.
Indeed, these two application areas are the main focus for the business currently — as a teaching tool for the presentation of geographical information; and for architecture and city planning. However the company is open to suggestions.
