3d signage, 3d printers and dynamic digital led...

3D SIGNAGE, 3D PRINTERS AND

DYNAMIC DIGITAL LED SIGNAGE

WHAT TO EXPECT AT APPPEXPO 2018

March 2018

Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth and Paulo Núñez

CONTENTS3D Signage 2

Thermoformed 11

3D Printers 15

DYNAMIC Digital LED Signage 19

Digital LED Signage 22

3D SIGNAGE, 3D PRINTERS AND DYNAMICDIGITAL LED SIGNAGE


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3D SIGNAGE,3D PRINTERS AND DIGITAL LED SIGNAGE




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3D SIGNAGE

Styrofoam and other comparable materials can be chiseled into 3-dimensional signage. If you wish, you can then spray paint the sign to be Coca-Cola color.



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Traditional signage is still prac-ticed around the world. So bend-ing machines are essential.

APPPEXPO is an excellent place to attend, so you can see dozens of brands and options.



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The two images here were in an exhibit area. These are frankly the best 3-dimensional works of visual reality that I have seen at a signage expo.

Artists and illustrators of China are capable and produce works of art that are worth seeing (plus Shanghai as an architectural landscape is worth seeing also).



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Honeycomb sandwich board is a material produced by many companies, especially in Scandinavian countries. Some of the structure is honeycomb size and shape. Other brands are diagonal or other geometric shapes (since the original honeycomb shape may be patented).

In this G-board booth you can see the furniture and booth façade which can be made with honeycomb sandwich board. You can print it, or you can make furni-ture which is not printed.



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These flat boards can easily be printed on with flatbed UV-curing printers. You then put these printed images onto a CNC router or an XY flatbed digital cutter. You cut, crease, or otherwise perforate the material to create the final effect that you wish.

The beauty of 3-dimensional creations with honeycomb sandwich board (or comparable plastic material) is that this is more than signage.



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You can also make architec-tural models.

Some entire booths (fa-cades and decorations) are made of entirely of 3-di-mensional material.

Increasingly “sign expos” are expanding their cover-age to more diverse forms of visual communication. Making replicas of historical sculptures is a good exam-ple that you see here in the nice Ruijie booth.

This is why we feel that more architects and interi-or designers should attend APPPEXPO.

Your opportunity are the last days of March 2018, to attend APPPEXPO 2018.



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For malls, airports, museums, conventions, and events, 3-dimensional sculptures are helpful to visually enter-tain the guests.

Plus to decorate hotel lobbies, these golden colored fish and elephant would be perfect.

The lobster or shrimp would be good at a restaurant.



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Inflatable 3-D constructions are actually common at trade shows for amusement parks. But the comical giant mouth as a doorway is great for any event with children.



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Thermo-forming is a manner of creating deep relief or fully 3D creations. You print on special kinds of thick flat plastic with your UV-curing flatbed printer. Then you put the image on top of a raised mold inside a thermo-forming machine. The heat of the thermo-forming machine causes the plastic to change shape to the shape created by the mold.

Essential is that the ink be “thermo-formable,” meaning that the ink can stretch without breaking. 3M and other compa-nies offer this ink.

efi VUTEk and Fujifilm are the companies which tend to show thermoformed 3D signage and displays are about half of the expos where they have a booth.

THERMOFORMED



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Thermo-formable ink for UV-curing print-ers has been available for over a decade. It gets better every year. But there are also larger thermo-forming technologies for heat pressing plastic material without needing a printer. As you can see here, these are used a lot to prepare deep-relief logos.



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The 3D work of art at the left is a reminder that there is a lot more than just signage at APPPEXPO every year.

The machine at the bottom of this page features signage at the front, but if you come to APPPEXPO yourself you will find many different applications (more than just signage).

3D is a way to visually communicate.



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3D PRINTERS

In past years machines that melted and extrud-ed plastic (FDM printers) tended to extrude just one color at a time. Now these printers can manage more than one color: here you see red and yellow.



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3D printers can be constructed in several ways, for example: the moving part can be the plate, the extruder or a combination of both (as shown in these photo-graphs).

The combination of a moving extruder and a moving plate is most often used because it requires less components, leaving motion in 2 axis for the extruder, generally “x” and “z” (height) or “x” and “y”, and movement in the remaining axis for the plate.

The selection of what part has movement in which axis deter-mines the amount of vibration present in the structure while printing, thus affecting the quality of the final print.

The 3D printer shown in this page has movement in the “y” axis for the plate and in the extruder the remaining two axis of movement (“x” and “z”) as contraire on the printer shown in the following page which has “z” movement on the plate and “x” and “y” on the extruder.



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Here you can see some 3D results of different sizes. Note that none of these are “signs.”



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DYNAMIC DIGITAL LED SIGNAGE



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DIGITAL LED SIGNAGE

Innovative lighting, especially illuminated letters over a black background, is a good example. If you are a “sign shop,” in order to survive, it helps if you can show your clients new, different, and innovative visual solutions.



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To have the dolphins “swimming out of the illuminated panel” is pre-cisely the kind of panel which attracts atten-tion. 3-dimensionality is crucial in the competitive world of today.



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Illuminated letters are part of basic traditional essen-tial signage. So it is useful to have all this available to see at an expo.



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Traditional signage for traditional brands (such as Mercedes). It is essential to have a signage core.



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The frankly cute and entertain-ing 3-dimensional creations here are a great expression of visual communication. Yes, the word “sign” is cemented to most “sign expos.” And yes, most sign expos understandably and actually necessarily focus on signage.

Once that is said, it is equally noticeable that most sign expos are moving to be visual com-munications trade shows. Ironic that VISCOM brand did not suc-ceed (but that is a whole other story: VISCOM Madrid, VISCOM Paris have disappeared. VISCOM Milano is 45% of what it used to be. VISCOM Germany is still functioning but has competitors which are 400% larger.

So APPPEXPO, Sign Istanbul, SGI (Sign Middle East in Dubai) are three expos which realize that it is essential to focus on more than signage. The illuminated 3D items here at APPPEXPO are frankly worth experiencing in person.



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It sure is worthwhile to attend APPPEXPO 2018 due to their awesome range of coverage of diverse wide-for-mat inkjet ink, media and printable materials, plus finishing equipment: lamination, cutters, etc.

Six members of the FLAAR Reports team will be at APPPEXPO 2018 in March. We all look forward to seeing you there.

Visiting Shanghai is worth the long flight, including for your co-lleagues, or your family. Here is the FLAAR Report about visiting Shanghai.



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http://large-format-printers.org/comparative-reviews_evaluations_price_wide-format-inkjet-printers_UV-cured_solvent_textile_resin_latex-ink/137_Shanghai_city_destination_2012.pdf

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU

AT APPPEXPO 2018

March 28, 29, 30, and 31, 2018www.apppexpo.com

VENUE

National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai)No.333 Songze Avenue, Qingpu District,

Shanghai, China

Watch Our APPPEXPO 2017Opening Ceremony

Watch Our APPPEXPO 2017Highlights

Watch Our APPPEXPO 2017General interviews

ENJOY OUR FLAAR REPORTS VIDEOSON APPPEXPO 2017



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http://www.apppexpo.com/lang/en

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8De_gfuykLU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8De_gfuykLU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDt2GUGGTvs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDt2GUGGTvs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3rTZkhY7UE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3rTZkhY7UE

This report has been licensed to Shanghai Modern International Exhibition Co. to distribute on their website, since they are the organizers of APPPEXPO (Advertising, Print, Pack & Paper Expo), Shanghai.

You can also obtain FLAAR Reports straight from our websites:

www.FLAAR-Reports.org | www.large-format-printers.org | www.wide-format-printers.net

©Copyright 2018

HELLMUTH, Nicholas and Paulo NÚÑEZ 2018 3D Signage, 3D Printers, and Digital LED Signage. What to expect at APPPEXPO 2018. FLAAR Reports Trade Shows

This PDF may be cited as follows:



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http://flaar-reports-subscriptions.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/flaar-reports-

https://twitter.com/FLAAR_Reports

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfnwsAsncBLfnudyNGlPiAg

https://www.facebook.com/FLAAR.Reports/

Plus, you can download the FLAAR Reports on the APPPEXPO 2017 to see more on what to expect here in 2018.

http://www.wide-format-printers.net/uv-cured-flatbed-wide-format-inkjet-printer-trends-statistics/UV-curable-flatbed-printer-consulting-market-trend-strategy-planning-analysis_competitive-intelligence.php





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