Last week on Wednesday and Thursday in Birmingham annual TCT Show took place in the National Exhibition Centre (NEC). I was fortunate enough to go, and before I go deeper into my personal experience of it, a bit of background information. 

TCT Show, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year is an international event bringing forth new technologies, applications and innovations. There is a lot of focus on the additive manufacturing, 3D printing, prototyping, product development, software, scanning and digitising.



 It was fascinating to see how far technology moved forward - various 3D printing machines and products that I've seen on the show were truly amazing. Seeing how I'm studying Design for Industry, you might ask: What does it have to do with designing? Well, best designers are not only imaginative, creative people, designing products - they also know how the products would be produced. What's the point of designing product which you couldn't bring to market because it would be too difficult to produce? So knowing technologies available to you is vital in a design.

It's good to know that thanks to 3D printing you can create prototype of jewellery that can be easily cast afterwards - it saves you some time, unlike wax carving or making metal and milliput model, and adds more precision to model, because machine works directly from CAD design.
 To learn bit more about 3D printing - how it works and it's applications, watch video below:


It was also great to hear about possibility of scanning 3D objects and turning them into CAD models - it's interesting idea and gives you a lot of room to play with - the options for application are huge.

Watch video below to see how it works:


All in all, TCT Show was worth going to - technologies I saw were wonderful, products manufactured using these technologies - even more so. If you get a chance to go next year - go and see what's out there - you will be pleasantly surprised.
That's everything for today.

                                                          Stay golden!!!