The Rotterdam Market Hall, scheduled to open this October, will be the first open-concept food market in the Netherlands. The building is a horseshoe-shaped arch with a one of a kind ceiling that has been called the "Sistine Chapel of Rotterdam". With the help of Wasatch SoftRIP, TS Visuals took on printing the artwork for this spectacular ceiling. You can watch how the sublimated panels were created and installed here.
Sistine Chapel of Rotterdam
The Rotterdam Market will feature unique fresh produce stands, food markets, cafés, a cooking school, and over 200 apartments. The 11,000 square metre piece of art will cover the unique arch-shaped ceiling and will be visible throughout the entire market. TS Visuals teamed up with Dutch artist, Arno Coenen, for the artwork, 'Horn of Plenty', which gives off an illusion that one is looking through the hall to heaven with produce and flowers descending to earth.
Creating a masterpiece this size is no easy task. The hall's ceiling was put together with a series of sublimated metal panels. The metal panels and coating were designed by TS Visuals. Each panel is lightweight and bendable with a high gloss coating that has anti-graffiti properties and is scratch resistant. For the hall, the metal panels were perforated for sound-dampening properties. A total of 4,000 panels were sublimated, each with a unique high-resolution image. Many panels were bent to accommodate the arch of the hall, giving an almost 3D effect to the art.
Colour Consistency
With a project this size, it is crucial that TS Visuals was able to achieve colour consistency with every panel they sublimated. Wasatch SoftRIP's colour management features gave them the ability to achieve this. With SoftRIP's Colour Atlas Generator and Spot Colour Replacement, TS Visuals was able to match spot colours and easily reproduce the desired colour on the metal panels. The end result is accurate, high quality colour. "SoftRIP is reliable and gave us the tools we needed to print the desired colour every time with no troubles," says Vincent Post, Commercial Advisor for TS Visuals.
Efficient Workflow
Using SoftRIP's tiling tools, TS Visuals was able to easily divide the oversized artwork for printing on the individual metal panels. After the selected artwork is tiled, Vincent used SoftRIP's Smart Nesting tools to maximise the print layout of the tiled image. And by adding crop marks and annotations to all tiled images, they were able to save time and avoid possible confusion when transferring the image. "The tiling and nesting features in SoftRIP saved us a lot of time and is so simple to use," says Vincent.
About TS Visuals
For more than 10 years, TS Visuals has specialised in large format printing and dye sublimation. With further support from Aga Print Solutions, TS Visuals' claim to fame is their incredible sublimated solutions. A dedicated research department at TS Visuals designs light durable metal panels, glass, steel, wood, and other coated hard surfaces for sublimation that can be cut into any shape. They make photographers, artists, interior designers, and architects idea's come to life. TS Visuals is based in the Netherlands. For more information, visit www.tsvisuals.nl
