Transmitting knowledge from GIS through physical objects
No one can deny that nowadays 3d printing is widely known to the general public, or even that its implementation is being accepted in most environments such as education, health care or in the own homes. The “maker” culture allows anyone to get almost any object instantly.
We believe in the use of digital tools and accessibility to data. But unfortunately, a lot of information we can find in GIS is not manageable by general people.
Why do we do this
As specialists in spatial thinking, we know that at GIS files we can find thousands of numbers, properties or just data. But how can we make all this information comprehensible to the public? Thanks to the potential that gives us the 3d printing we can convert all this information that offers GIS in knowledge.
Physical objects, which can be touched, and observed from any angle generates a certain understanding that is not comparable to looking at data or words.
Open source
The predominant philosophy in the currents movements of digital creation is based on the accessibility of knowledge, the development of free designs, the transmission of ideas… in what they call Open Source.
There is a very strong relationship between this philosophy and the origin of the data used in GIS. We find that most of sources of information for these files come from public institutions, which make available to the citizens this data.
How do we do this
In our case, our experience with the export of tangible data to physical objects has always been excellent.
The key resides in the previous interpretation of the data on platforms such as ArcGIS or QGIS. This is the most important step in obtaining a quality object, that can really transmit knowledge.
The physical object must be studied very thoroughly, and the intelligibility of the same be determined. Is it understandable on its own? Do we need support information to be understood?
This whole process must be orchestrated by the UX Designers, which will be the people able to understand whether the model is right or wrong.
After we do this, with a modeling program (in our case we’ve been using Rhinoceros and AutoCAD), we generate the model to print and we exported it to the required file extension of the 3D printer that we are going to use.
In the market there are many different printers and techniques, so the previous understanding or consultation with professionals on this topic would be always be helpful.
