Raise up Your Work and Elevate Your Creativity With the new 3D Printing Technology of Project Eiger

Let’s get tactile. Let’s add some texture. Topography. These are the enhancements Project Eiger and Océ want select new customers to consider while exploring their creativity with new technology that can add high resolution and elevation of up to 5 millimeters thick to 3D printed copies of artwork or photos.

Both Project Eiger and Canon’s Océ Technologies are now calling on interior, product or graphic designers ‘looking for a new dimension,’ to join Project Eiger, in using their beta plug-in to create full color elevated designs in Adobe Illustrator. The designs are uploaded to the Project Eiger factory from which the full color elevated prints are shipped back to the customer.

If you enjoy ‘firsts,’ and participating in cutting edge technology, you could be one of the initial artists to participate and elevate both your designs and your creativity, with Océ Technology. Offering high resolution patented technology ‘with micro millimeter precision,’ you can expect your printed work to have the same quality as that of two dimensional printed copies, using a CMYK or RGB image, or an existing image. The ink for your visibly and texturally raised, printed image is long-lasting (up to a decade) with possible print sizes from 5 centimeters to 100 x 240 centimeters possible.

To transform your photo or art in this project, you’ll need either Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. The fun comes in with Project Eiger’s plug in, The Elevation Assistant, which you will need to download to get started. In Adobe Illustrator, The Elevation Assistant allows you to add elevation to vector and raster images, and to create height, patterns,textures and beveled edges.

Black and white is suggested for adding height. You can preview your designs in the 3D viewer, as well as ordering a sample ‘slice of your design’ before ordering the whole print. Once your design is complete from your end, Project Eiger asks that you export it to their specially designed PDF file and then send it off to be printed. They do honor special requests, and also explain that while use of the plug-in is free, customers must pay to have designs printed.

What are your thoughts on this new type of 3D printing with a raised and textured surface? Tell us about it in the Océ and Project Eiger forum thread at 3DPB.com.

Océ’s history goes back to 1857 when Lodewijk van der Grinten started a pharmacy in Venlo, The Netherlands. Lodewijk’s grandson Louis invented a diazo coating that required no ammonia component, and was called Océ, which was simply an abbreviation in English for ‘Without Components.’ Océ is a company dedicated to offering innovative print and document management products and services for professional environments.