PrototypeBlog

One of Sweden’s largest daily newspapers recently reported that the 157 square-foot replica was the second most visited exhibit in the country last year. Until recently, the exhibit was displayed at Stockholm’s Kulturhuset (The Culture House) in Stockholm’s city center. It is currently being stored and readied for shipment to another, yet-to-be determined, location within Sweden.

 

To construct the Stockholm model, Mitekgruppen used aerial photos and drawings to create the city’s buildings in a computer aided design (CAD) program. Where aerial photos and drawings weren’t available, designers relied on Google Earth to prepare these CAD files for the 3D printer. The CAD files were then sent to the 3D printer to produce models of Stockholm’s buildings. The finished building replicas where then positioned, secured and hand painted along with other landscape features including bridges, cars, boats trains and trees.

Combining the information from the photos, drawings and Google Earth with Dimension’s accurate models, the replica was completed in under six months months. Mitekgruppen is currently engaged in discussions with other cities in Sweden to create similar city models.

“A handmade model of this scale would have been a tremendous time investment,” said Martin Jonsson, co-owner and designer at Mitekgruppen. “Similar city replicas have taken years to construct. With the Dimension 3D printer and the images we gathered from Google Earth, a project that could have taken years to finished was completed in a matter of months.”

 

Other companies have used the Dimension 3D printer to create neighborhood models within cities. Gordon Ingram Associates (GIA), a U.K. based lighting consultancy firm, used a Dimension to generate scaled 3D models of areas in central London, allowing interested parties the ability to witness the effects of light on the buildings in the cityscape.

“The Dimension 3D printer offers a significant advantage to organizations looking to model architectural projects and cityscapes in a short amount of time,” said Jon Cobb, vice president and general manager of 3D printing for Stratasys. “We are excited to see how design and architectural firms use the Dimension 3D printer to produce these complex replicas so efficiently. The use of Google Earth for these projects is exciting, especially where aerial maps and drawings are unavailable or fall short of giving designers the information they need to create accurate replicas.”

More information on the Dimension 3D Printer is available at http://www.protopulsion.com/. 

For more information about Mitekgruppen, visit http://www.mitekgruppen.se/.