ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Rochester Institute of Technology is sharing history through technology in a kind of time travel experience. RIT's 3D digital design program created an interactive virtual reality experience of a famous printing press.

The Kelmscott/Goudy Albion cast iron hand-press dates back to 1891. It's one of the most extraordinary presses in printing history. It printed what’s considered a masterpiece, "The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer."


What You Need To Know

  • The app teaches printing history and graphic design to print on the digital “twin” of the Kelmscott/Goudy printing press

  • The 19th-century press is housed at the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at RIT

  • Several RIT students contributed to the project

Students and faculty from RIT's 3D Digital Design program have gamified the hand-press into a new, free virtual reality app available on STEAM. 

"This is just the beginning and fun to see how going back to the past where this was sort of a cutting-edge tool and looping all the way around full circle," said Shaun Foster, an RIT 3D digital design professor. 

The VR printing press app has sounds and tactile pressure of inking the roller and pulling the printer handle over the typeset. Imagine doing this page-by-page back in the day. You get to feel like you are.

People travel from all over the world to see the printing press; now, anyone can experience it on the virtual app.  

"For me, it brings history alive. For me it gives more access to museums and library archive pieces. But the idea of getting these historical objects into people's hands, even if virtually, is what really excites me," said Steven Galbraith, curator of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at RIT.

RIT's Cary Graphic Arts Collection bought the press at a Christie's auction in 2013 for $233,000.