How we made magic Mini Me’s at Printing United 2025
As I’m on my way to the US, the excitement for Printing United begins to bubble! I'm really looking forward to the energy of the show, connecting with so many of you, and sharing what we've been working on at Enfocus.
This year, our booth will, again, tell a story. A story of powerful partnerships, boundless creativity, and the incredible potential of automation.
Here's a deep dive into what we’ll be showcasing. Let’s start with one of my concepts that has become well-known by now: the mini me. This year we’re giving the mini me a magic twist.
Why do we produce mini me’s at a show
I’m just a marketing guy. I try to come up with creative ways of telling the story of the solutions I want to promote. That’s how the concept of the mini me came to mind in 2023.
What if we could:
- get a picture taken of anyone at our booth
- have the background automatically stripped from the picture
- generate a cut path on-the-fly
- add a base so that the mini me could stand up
- automatically nest multiple mini mes so that they can be printed and cut with as little as possible substrate loss?
How much time would all of these steps take when done manually? If we do this, lights out automated, and done within a minute, wouldn’t that show the power of automation? Turns out it does, but when I or my team get creative, you still need superheroes to configure the flows.
Luckily, we have a few Switch maestros at Enfocus. And even more luckily, when we share our ideas, we get enthusiasm back after a first initial sigh. But then the maestros run with it! In this case, I’m talking about Laurent Dewilde, who made the initial Mini Me flow which we premiered in 2023, and Davy who has added some of his ideas, and involved some extra partners to make the flows even better.
Producing a mini me is really “simple”
Here’s the full Switch flow we will use. It might look intimidating at first, but Switch admins know what I’m talking about.
A brief summary of what this flow does:
- Take in webform data using Paperform
- Allow booth staff to attach a picture to the correct data using Trello
- Improve the image quality using Viesus Cloud
- Strip the background using Photoroom
- Turn the subject in the picture into a magic mini me which fits our theme using 4o Image Generation (Open AI)
- Automatically create a smooth cut path using PitStop
- When 40 mini me’s are done: nest a sheet and add the bases using Griffin Auto within Switch
- Send everything to Digitech for Printing
- Send cut files to Kongsberg for cutting
And thanks to creativity, partnerships and automation, Printing United visitors can leave the show with a miniature version of themselves.
During every step of this process, the flow sends updates to our specially made Trello board, where everything is very nicely visualized: which mini me is getting the background removed, which mini me is done, which mini me is ready for nesting, which mini me is produced?
Which task makes your life miserable?
In a way this is “just” rule-based automation, enhanced with some AI. But in the end, it’s miserable, mind-boggling work taken off our shoulders. And that is just… magic!
Of course I like to show off the things we’re able to do using our solutions. But it’s just one mere example of what automation can do. And it can do a lot more for you!
Come by our booth, let’s have a chat. In preparation of your visit, whether you’re on a plane or in the car. Take a note (plane) or a voice note (car, eyes on the road!) and think about the one task that makes your life miserable. We’ve got our team of certified integrators with us at the show, and I’m sure they’ll be able to help you out. Spoiler alert: there’s even a chance that they already automated that task at your competitors.
See you next week!
Piet
