This tab provides some general considerations for producing 3D-printed models of your preferred not-pollen samples. They're the questions I work through in my head when people ask me if something can be done, and they're a good guide to help you work out what's possible – or at least how to find out what might be possible.

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Firstly, how big is your sample?

If it's best measured in centimetres or more, then this is outside my area of expertise. For samples of this size, one option might be a laser scanner, which can be effective on very large specimens – London's Natural History Museum has scanned their blue whale skeleton using this technique! (In fact, you can view and download it here.) For a similar alternative, you could use photogrammetry. These techniques can give good information on the external surfaces of a sample (potentially including colour), but something like a CT scanner can also capture internal features which might be of interest, and may have higher resolution.

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If your sample is best measured in millimetres, then CT or micro-CT scanning may be the best approach, though laser scanning or photogrammetry could also be workable. It is possible that a confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) could be appropriate, but this will depend on other factors, as discussed below. And if your sample is micrometres big, then a CLSM or micro-CT (or even nano-CT) is probably the best approach, although there are also options like SEM-microphotogrammetry.

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My expertise is most applicable to microscopic samples, so I'll focus on those from this point. To choose between techniques – principally micro-CT vs CLSM – we need to know what your sample is like.

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Does your sample allow light to pass through it, or could it be made to do so? If not, then confocal microscopy/CLSM is unlikely to work, and micro-CT is probably the better option.

Does your sample autofluoresce (that is, does it fluoresce if it's excited by certain wavelengths of light)? You might be able to find out by searching online. Samples need to fluoresce if you want to scan them with a CLSM, so if they do it automatically (like pollen does), then that's no problem! If they don't autofluoresce, you'll need to find out whether your samples can take a fluorescent dye. If it's not possible to get your samples to fluoresce one way or another, then a CLSM is likely to struggle.

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Would your sample be opaque to X-rays? Micro-CT scans work on the same principles as medical X-rays, so very low-density samples may not provide enough contrast to be imaged successfully.

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Again, these are the kinds of questions I try and find answers to when people ask me if it's possible to make 3D-printable models of not-pollen samples. Once you've worked through them, you should have a better idea about your options. So, what next? At that point, it's probably best to find someone with whom you can discuss your requirements in detail – many universities will have people with expertise in the relevant microscopy techniques, and there may be others outside academia too. 

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In the UK, it may be worth contacting NXCT (National X-ray Computed Tomography) if you want to discuss the applicability or practicalities of micro-CT for your samples, and there are also UK, European and global bioimaging networks who could help with confocal microscopy queries. Importantly, these networks may provide pathways for using facilities which you can't otherwise access (e.g. if you don't work at an institution with this equipment). You can also contact someone who's previously attempted to make scans or models of your not-pollen to learn from their experiences (or find out how they acquired their data) – the resources in these tabs should give some ideas of people to try. And, if your not-pollen isn't too dissimilar to my pollen, you would be welcome to drop me a line too. I won't have much to add beyond what's on this page, but I'll try my best to help.

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Finally, remember that it may not actually be necessary to create your own resources from scratch – someone else might already have done the hard work for you! This page was put together in October 2022; new resources may have been published since then, and it's possible that pre-existing resources were omitted (though I will try and keep it somewhat up-to-date). In this instance, it's always worth searching through data repositories to see if they hold anything relevant. re3data is a very useful directory of scientific data repositories. Ones like MorphoSource and MorphoBank are good examples, but there are plenty of others (there is a list of scientific repositories on iDigFossils, for example, and a more generalist one from think3D). You may also be able to find relevant 3D-printable models to download from websites like Sketchfab (like these incredible models of fish and plants), but models on there have been produced in many different ways and not all can be downloaded.

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I hope this information, and the resources on the other tabs in this section, is useful – good luck!