by Martin Stew: ITV Weather Presenter
– last updated Wed 5 Mar 2014
With Spring in sight and dry, warm weekend ahead many of us will to venturing back into the garden for the first time this year.
If you’re planning a major overhaul but struggling to visualize it you could be jealous of new technology on display at the Strand Gallery.
These professional garden design models haven’t been built, they’ve been 3D printed.
It’s quite a strange experience because today literally this moment is the first time I’ve seen the garden in reality which is strange because usually as you’re building a garden you can see it from ground up so this is very strange but it’s great it’s great that you can see something that you haven’t had to build and you turn up and it’s there.
– Jamie Dunstan, landscape designer
Original 3D printers work like an standard inkjet printer – except they also add height on every run. But new technology is even more advanced.
One of the most exciting things about the new 3D printers is that they can support structures which seem to float with no struts underneath.
Well it builds them layer by layer on top of each other these layers glue to each other. Because it’s moving down a layer every time it builds up the powder that’s lying around it doesn’t glue acts as a support and this is an amazing technology because once we remove it out of the printer we just blow off all the excess powder which is the support and we are left with the model at the end.
– Michelle Greeff, Hobs 3D
Complex designs like this gardens can be printed in 6 hours – far quicker that glueing, sticking and decorating hand made models. According to landscape designer Sarah Eberle the potential is endless:
I think it’s enormous. There are so many people who find it so hard to visualise that it’s great for presentations for clients, you know I think it’s the way we will go.
For now the technology remains relatively niche and expensive – but 3D printing has big plans for the future.
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