Rutgers University: “Using a high-tech 3-D printer, a Rutgers undergraduate and his professor created sophisticated braille maps to help blind and visually impaired people navigate a local training center.” [via]
Planetary globes aren’t the only map-related 3D-printed items being sold on Shapeways; Ian Grasshoff writes to say that he’s flogging 3D relief maps there as well. “I have made it a focus to only use Open Data (LiDAR where available) and Open Source GIS/modeling software,” he writes. “I think the results speak for themselves.”
On Shapeways, a site where users can upload and sell 3D-printed items, George Ioannidis is selling globes of the planets and moons of our solar system. There are individual globes, globes that take into account moons’ irregular topography (e.g. Phobos and Diemos, Iapetus), all in different sizes (none of which are very big: 50 to 200 mm), and collections where each planet and moon is to scale (as seen above, this can be somewhat unwieldy, but it’s neat for Jupiter’s Galilean moons, for example). I’m unreasonably enthusiastic about this sort of thing. [via]
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