Modelling the Abbey

FifeX has been working on a major modelling and 3D printing job for Historic Scotland at Dunfermline Abbey.

An amazing model (right) forms part of their display but it has come in for some abuse over the last few years - as it was built as a one-off, it has been hard and expensive to replicate parts.

Each component can be positioned on the main model to show the development of the Abbey over the years - with some buildings sitting on top of others!

FifeX took on the job of remodelling all the buildings into 3D so that they could be printed.

The render on the right shows the 3D data for one of these buildings. The process of printing these is under way - we'll get some photos on here when they're ready!

GSC - SEPA

FifeX completed a large install at GSC funded by OPAL and SEPA. The exhibition is on floor two next to the lift and is formed of a large wall section with tables and two other tables near the window.

The top photo shows part one of the exhibition which includes a bespoke abacus software game, two huge touch sensor areas and a fairly advanced electronic shape sorted with some interesting sounds.

Picture two shows a prototype of our Corian 'puck' holder. The small pucks hold resin encapsulations of various lichen samples and users can view them under UV light. The puck holders are made from two thicknesses of corian and then milled out to form the discs. The mount for them is also milled in-house on our X-carve.

The third photo shows the two OPAL desks with the samples out for viewing.

The tables are all made in double-thickness ply with the cut-outs for the translucent acrylic which look fantastic if you see them when it's not night-time!

Space Station - Columbus

The end of 2016 and the start of 2017 were dominated by a hugely exciting project to recreate the Columbus module of the International Space Station inside Aberdeen Science Centre!

The giant module is just over 6m long and is completely circular - it is covered in foamex and has a few authentic features including space food! The Science Centre are going to be filling the module with challenges and experiments over the next few months so be sure to get along and see what they're doing.

In this photo the team are shown with a cardboard cut-out of Tim - but maybe he'll make it along at some point - fingers crossed!

George Cross

The summer has been very busy with some big projects but one of the more exciting smaller things we've been working on is this George Cross model for the Museum of London.

The idea went through various iterations before being completed in laserply. We cut the model into six layers, mixing up the thicknesses to create the 3D required for the final model.


The display, which forms part of the Family Interventions series aimed at families visiting Docklands, tells visors about the events that took place in 1940 through an illustrated comic book which is based on a diary of Ricard Moore who's George Cross this model was based upon. It is part of the exciting display at Docklands in London - well worth a visit!

Building a Fort

Earlier this year, FifeX finished a new exhibition in one of the casemates at Fort George.

If you haven't been to Fort George, it's an amazing place - its size is mind-blowing and as well as being a visitor attraction, it is also a functioning army barracks for the Black Watch.

The new exhibition is incredibly well researched and features some fascinating facts about the Fort, its design and how it was used. We also developed some interactives as part of the exhibition, one of which you can see on the right.

2016 is its first summer season and our mid-season inspection yesterday showed it to be holding up well so far. If you haven't been, get up there!

Making the Invisible Visible

FifeX's latest exhibition build for Glasgow Science Centre centres around Quantum Technologies and includes some fantastic cutting edge exhibits including our 64 mirror DMD array. See the video for more info.

All Flooded Up

 FifeX was delighted to work on a fun project with SEPA, designing and developing some small shapes to go with one of their outreach flooding challenges.

Our solution was to create a range of fun shapes in 2D material which users could place on a map - the shapes showed things like flooded cars, buses, houses, broken trees and even sewage problems!

The SEPA roadshow is up and running!