The future of wargames scenery - 3D printing

[Arteis]

Recently my wife told me that she had just found out that a colleague’s partner was into wargaming and making his own scenery.  This of course piqued my interest, so I contacted him and arranged a visit.  Arriving in his workshop, I found to my surprise that Matt wasn’t scratch-building scenic items in the traditional manner, but was designing 3D files and marketing them on the internet.

My blog has much more info and pics about this exciting concept:  https://arteis.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/ive-seen-the-future-of-wargames-terrain/

Here are some examples of his printed-out scenery in action:

[Poiter50]

Hmm, wonder how that would go for Roman Insulae?

[grant]

About two years ago, I was offered $80000 interest free to purchase a many-thousands colour 3D printer to start a business. I ran the numbers so many times, but couldn't make them work.

Fast forward two years, and the price of these 3D printers is now getting so close to everyone can do it. It's truly the next big thing.

[Dan]

Yes its amazing what you can print out now. I saw this at work and posted it on my Blog recently.



http://wadesworldofwargaming.blogspot.co.nz/2014/12/3d-printing.html

[beefcake]

Very nice.

[Sangennaru]

I do use 3D printing regularly for my master sculpting, and it's certainly a very useful tool.
However, the "affordable" printers at the moment have a rather crappy quality. On the website linked in your blog the guy is selling only the STL file, but once you have got it, to print it in a nice quality you need a very expensive device.

Things WILL change, but for now it's still just a step away.