Sculptors and 3d printing

On friday I had a trip to London, talking finance, equity shares, next steps for a major project all very heavy stuff. On the way back from the meeting one of my good friend and business partners and I stopped by at The Royal British Society of Sculptors on Old Brompton road.
The outside of the building had a reactive sculpture that opened mechanical umbrella type flowers that wound up the side of the building like a vine so I knew this would be interesting.
Inside the main exhibits were suitably technical yet artistic. One was the wearable tail, a robot fashionable tail that was really more like Second Life than south kensington. Others were water bubbles generated in a tank to create the shapes of numbers, which was a forerunner of the glowing ball structures that rise and fall with the stock market at the London Stock Exchange.
Out the back there were a set of design concepts for a competition that would be the next installation to replace the flowers out front.
I was immediately drawn to this model
By Bruce Gernand FRBS
It was a computer designer 3d model that had been rendered using a 3d printer in order to be able to see the concept before it is rendered in full size aluminium.
So there I was in a sculpture society looking at a physical rendition for a virtual model that would become a full size one. That was the winner for me as you can imagine.
I left a comment that I would like to be able to share the experience of exploring the virtual model as well as seeing the physical model.
With HP doing deal with Stratasys moving into the 3d printing market this sort of thing will become a lot more common!