Going Up?

Case Study: Elevator Enclosed in Decorated Glass

Residents of Hamburg, Germany, ride in style when they visit one of their local dministrative buildings. The building’s elevator is enclosed in printed glass as part of a recent renovation. This includes the lower panels of the elevator which have laminated glass.

The end result was achieved via the expertise of a new technology from INTERPANE-Sicherheitsglas of Hildesheim that allows digital drop-on-demand printing on glass. Digital printing on glass is pioneered by DIP Tech, an Israeli company.

Digital drop-on-demand ceramic printing on glass provides considerable creative freedom in a far more cost-efficient manner than earlier systems relying primarily on screens, factors that led early adaptors like INTERPANE to embrace the technology.

“Utilizing Interpane’s advanced facilities, I had already used DIP Tech’s GlassJet™ for a massive project that involved redesigning the exterior of a building using 295 different panels,” said Bernd Hoffmann, the glass production expert. “It was so easy to use and had all the features I needed to make such an undertaking a pleasure. After that, I knew this was the wave of the future and could barely wait to use it again.”

The elevator project involved 40 glass panes from 450 x 2100 to 2400 x 2100 mm, which were decorated with blades of tropical grass, an image strongly contrasting its urban environs. Each glass pane is decorated with a unique, individual part of the motif. The main colors are green, yellow and black mixed with white to control translucency. The GlassJet™ can produce up to five colors in a single run, providing easy, quick production. All shades and tones of the original are digitally mixed directly on the substrate.

Hoffmann modestly describes the process of designing such a complicated process as fairly straightforward.

“The architect provided proofs on paper and transparent film, as well as NCS-color-specifications and a part of the motif as a TIFF-file with a 30-dpi resolution,” Hoffman explains. “Thankfully, the GlassJet comes with Pixel-Blaster software, so even low-resolution images are easily processed. Remarkably, all the data fit onto one disk-onkey.

We were able to print a multicolored image without needing any rasterization. This way, the grass design on glass could be realized without disturbing points andstructures.” The three lower floors of the elevator cabinet are made from laminated glass, with ceramic digital printing inside. The four upper floors are made from 12 mm toughened or tempered float glass, with ceramic digital printing (CDP) inside.

The entire process allowed Hoffmann to compose 40 positions, letting him arrange a large-format picture without any deviations.

The main challenge INTERPANE dealt with was that the two tiles for the doors were ordered four months later. The digital preparation and reliability of the GlassJet made quick work of that, and the doors integrate seamlessly with the rest of the design.

“The GlassJet’s variable data feature allows large-format, multitiled print jobs using embedded tilenumbers in the rint files to allow an even workflow without any chance for mix-ups in installation,” continued Hoffmann. “We embedded the numbers in the corners so only those involved in the actual installation would know they were there.”

“The customer really appreciated the significant savings provided by the GlassJet, concluded Hoffmann. “Unlike screens with cumbersome films, set up, cleaning and storage with all the associated expenses, the digital technology provided a hefty 20% reduction in costs.”