Despite having had its uses in heavy industry and elsewhere for quite some time, 3D printing has become something of a buzzword over the last few years. Applications have ranged from the fun but somewhat useless, to intriguing concepts like travel bags full of essentials that can be printed off at your destination.
Now Dutch designer Maaike Roozenburg has come up with an innovative way to replicate iconic designs by working with ceramics, to create replicas of otherwise fragile museum pieces. While the results may not instill quite the same level of intrigue as the originals, they do provide an interesting mechanism allowing the viewing of these objects just about anywhere. And combined with augmented reality markers and accompanying software, the historical details can be viewed up close by passing your smartphone over the items.
Ultimately this could mean museum-goers would be able to actually pick up and hold objects that would otherwise be completely off limits, with the historical information provided in the most technologically efficient way.