In 1926, the Fort Harrison Hotel opened in Clearwater, Florida. It has developed quite a reputation over the years but in the 1970s, it was in need of serious renovation. After new owners bought the hotel, it took many years to complete the renovations. In fact, they were only just completed this year. In an effort to hype the grand reopening, the owners needed a scale model of the entire hotel. That’s when a 3D printing service came to the rescue and brought everything together.
You see, they needed a model in under a months time and the only real solution was rapid
prototyping. They had a 3D CAD model of the hotel on hand making the process smooth and easy. In order to accomplish this task, the owners contacted EMS who utilized their Z Corp 3D printers to make it happen. These printers build models by placing one layer on top of another until the model is constructed from the bottom up.
This kind of 3D printing service is highly valuable in producing models in a very shortperiod of time. It simply wouldn’t have been possible for the owners of the hotel to hire someone to build a model by hand in such a short period of time. The CAD files weren’t as complete as EMS would’ve liked but they resolved the problem by editing the files and completely prepping it before they began the 3D printing process.
EMS was familiar with building architectural models because they’ve done so for many years now. Fixing the hotel’s CAD data was a routine procedure and a part of their standard 3D printing service. Following the completion of the print job, EMS prepared the model for bronze plating as the hotel owners wanted it to have a very fancy look.
Many people might be skeptical about the idea of 3D printers, however, they can be quite useful tools. In any other situation the hotel would’ve needed to forego having a 3D model on hand at the grand opening because there just wasn’t enough time. But with the use of the 3D printing service, Fort Harrison Hotel had a detailed 3D model to display for the audience at the grand opening. What makes this all even better is the fact that the printing process was completed under a week’s time. That’s just something that wouldn’t be possible any other way.