A high-resolution image is installed on the prepared, primed slab and then buried under several coats of clear resin. Stand in the doorway and the floor appears to open up beneath you. It is an optical effect, not a hologram and not a screen — and it is the most committed decorative floor you can choose, because the image is permanent once it goes down.
A 3D floor has three parts: a prepared slab, a printed image, and clear resin over the top of it. The image is printed at high resolution on a dedicated flooring media, laid into wet resin on the primed and colour-coated slab, and then covered with clear build coats and a protective topcoat. Everything you walk on is resin. The picture sits underneath it, sealed in.
The depth is worth explaining honestly, because it is the thing people misunderstand. The printed image is flat. What creates the illusion is the clear resin above it: light enters the build, refracts, reflects off the printed layer and comes back to your eye through a few millimetres of glass-clear material. Move your head and the highlights shift slightly against the image — the same parallax that makes water look deeper than it is. That is the whole mechanism. There is no lens, no lenticular trick, nothing that moves, and nothing that needs power. It is also why a 3D floor is far more convincing standing in the room than it ever looks in a photograph on a phone.
Underneath the decoration the discipline is identical to any other resin system, and the practical performance of the finished floor is decided by the topcoat and the depth of the clear build, not by the picture you chose.
Nothing is installed until you have approved the artwork. We work only from high-resolution files, because an image that looks sharp on a laptop can enlarge into visible pixelation and print dots at floor scale — a bathroom floor is a two-metre-wide print, and the customer is standing a metre and a half from it. We will tell you plainly if a file you have found is not big enough, and either source an alternative at the right resolution or commission the artwork.
Before the full-size print is ordered you see a proof: the layout at scale on paper, plus a printed colour patch you can hold against your tiles, paint and lighting. Print colour under warm downlights is not the same as print colour on a screen, and this is the stage to find that out. You sign the proof, then we order. After the print is laid into resin, it is the floor — so we would rather spend an extra two days at proof stage than have you living with a colour you did not expect.
The image is laid out to the room, not simply stretched to fit it. A 3D floor has a main viewing position — almost always the doorway — and the composition is set for that sight line. A wave should break towards the person walking in. A waterfall should fall away from the entrance rather than sideways across it. The dense part of a galaxy image should not end up under a bed, a vanity or a sofa where nobody will ever see it.
So before the print goes to production we measure the room, mark the door position and the fixed furniture on the layout, and check where the cuts will land around a WC pan, a shower tray, a drain or a column. Get this right and the floor reads as one deliberate scene. Get it wrong and a technically perfect installation still looks wrong, which is the most expensive kind of mistake on a floor like this.
This is a statement floor. It suits a client who wants one room to be genuinely memorable and is comfortable committing to a single image for the life of the floor. It is a good fit when:
It is the wrong system when:
3D floors work in rooms you look at rather than rooms you work in, and in spaces small enough that one image can own them:
We have offices in all major cities and provide service all over Pakistan. If you are building or renovating, tell us early: the floor needs to be sequenced after the wet trades and before final fittings, and the print needs lead time before we mobilise.
Read the diagram from the top down — that is the order you see the floor, and the reverse of the order in which it is built. The two layers that decide how good a 3D floor looks are the clear build and the topcoat above the image, and the flatness of the slab below it.
Thicker clear build gives more apparent depth, because there is more material for light to travel through. It also costs more and takes longer, since each coat has to go down inside the recoat window of the one before it. We set the build against the room, the image and the budget, and we put the specification in writing rather than leaving it vague.
Shown top to bottom, as the floor is seen and then as it is built.
Illustrative references for the kind of artwork that works at floor scale. Your own image is laid out to your room and approved on a proof before anything is printed. Tap any image to view it larger.
Most of the benefit is visual, and there is no point pretending otherwise. But the practical gains that come with any seamless resin floor apply here too.
These are the trade-offs we go through on site before anyone commits. None of them are deal-breakers in the right room — but you should hear them from us, not discover them afterwards.
Preparation decides whether the floor lasts. The print stage decides whether it looks right, and it happens once. Both follow this order, every time.
We measure the room, check the substrate for rising moisture and look at how the space is lit, entered and used. Where moisture is present we specify a moisture-tolerant primer or barrier system so the floor performs long term.
We agree the image, check its resolution against the finished size, set the orientation to the main viewing position and mark the cuts around fixtures. You approve a scaled proof and a colour patch in writing before anything is printed.
Diamond grinding opens the slab so the resin can bond. We do not coat over dust, laitance or a floor that has not been assessed — this is the single biggest factor in whether a resin floor survives.
Cracks are cut out, filled and consolidated, joints are treated according to whether they need to stay live, and the surface is brought flat. Clear resin will show anything we leave behind, so this stage is longer on a 3D floor than on a solid colour.
A penetrating primer seals the slab and creates the bond the rest of the system depends on.
A base colour chosen to suit the image goes down first. It gives the print an even ground and stops the slab reading through pale areas of the artwork.
The print is laid into wet resin and worked outwards from the centre to drive out every trace of air, then trimmed to the walls and around fixtures. A single trapped bubble or a crease stays visible for the life of the floor, so this stage is done by the same experienced installation teams every time, in a closed and dust-free room.
Several coats of clear resin are applied over the image, each inside the recoat window of the one before it. This is the layer that creates the depth, and it cannot be rushed by adding more people.
The final coat sets the gloss level, abrasion resistance, slip resistance and UV stability. This is the layer that takes the wear, and the layer that can be refreshed years later without touching the image.
The floor cures to a return-to-service time we confirm for your specific system. We walk the finished floor with you, check it from the standing sight line you chose, and hand over the written warranty.
There is no single rate for 3D work, because two rooms of the same size can need very different amounts of preparation, print and build. These are the factors that actually change the number on your quotation.
| Cost factor | Why it moves the price | What we do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Slab condition and flatness | Clear resin magnifies defects, so a 3D floor needs a flatter, cleaner substrate than any other system. Dips, old adhesive and weak concrete all add hours before resin goes down. | Assessed at the free inspection and priced as a separate line so you can see exactly what the slab is costing you. |
| Area and layout | Rate per sqft falls as area grows. Small bathrooms, corridors and broken-up rooms cost more per sqft than one open floor, and every fixture to cut around is hand work. | We measure on site rather than working from a drawing, and count the detail areas. |
| Artwork source and resolution | Stock artwork is the cheapest route. A commissioned image, a composite or heavy retouching to make a file usable at floor scale all add cost before printing. | We tell you at enquiry stage whether your file will hold up at size, and offer alternatives at the right resolution. |
| Print production | The print is made to your room's dimensions, so it is a fixed cost tied to area, not a per-tile price. Reprints caused by a late design change are chargeable. | Proof and colour patch signed off before production, so a reprint should never be needed. |
| Depth of clear build | More clear coats give more apparent depth and better protection, and use more material and more days. | Specified against the room, the image and your budget, and written into the quotation. |
| Topcoat specification | UV-stable, higher-abrasion and slip-resistant topcoats cost more than a standard clear coat. | Recommended based on sunlight, footfall and whether the area gets wet. |
| Edges and detail | Coving, shower thresholds, drains, WC pans, stair nosings and columns are slow, hand-worked areas. | Counted and listed, so nothing appears as an extra later. |
| Access and working hours | Upper floors without a lift, occupied homes and night-only working in commercial units all add time. | Programmed with you so the room is out of use for the shortest possible period. |
| Location | Where a site needs a crew to travel, mobilisation is included in the quotation. | Scheduled as a single continuous mobilisation wherever possible. |
A 3D floor has two clocks. The first runs before we mobilise: artwork selection, layout, proof approval and print production. Allow time for that rather than assuming it happens in parallel with site work, because we will not order a print until the proof is signed.
On site, plan on roughly four to seven working days for a single room. Preparation, crack repair and priming usually take the first day or two, the body coat the next, the print installation one focused day, and the clear build plus topcoat the days after that. Each coat has to go down inside the recoat window of the previous layer, so the sequence cannot be compressed by adding more people — it is set by the material, not by the crew size.
Larger or multi-room projects are phased so parts of the property stay usable, and we agree in advance which rooms come out of service when. The room also has to stay closed and clean during installation: dust landing on wet clear resin is permanent.
Return-to-service time is system-specific. Light foot traffic usually comes back well before heavy furniture, wheeled loads or cleaning chemicals are allowed on the floor, and warm weather cures faster than cold. We do not quote one universal number: the exact foot-traffic and full-service times for your build-up are confirmed in your quotation and repeated at handover.
You never clean the image — you clean the topcoat above it. That is good news, because a topcoat is replaceable and a printed layer is not. Almost all of the fine scratching on a glossy decorative floor comes from sand and dust being walked across it, not from the traffic itself.
When the gloss eventually flattens in the main walking lines, the topcoat can be abraded and re-coated. That restores the clarity and the depth without going near the printed layer, and it costs a fraction of a new floor. We will tell you honestly when a floor is ready for a refresh — and when it is not yet worth doing.
The image is only half the specification. The topcoat decides how the floor behaves day to day — how deep it looks, how safe it is underfoot, and how much cleaning it asks of you.
Maximum depth and the strongest illusion, because a mirror-clear surface lets light travel cleanly through the build. It is also the option that shows dust, footprints and fine scratching most clearly. Best in controlled rooms with matting at the door.
A softer sheen that hides day-to-day marking far better. You lose some of the depth — that is the honest trade — but in a busy family bathroom or a kids room it is usually the right call.
A fine additive broadcast into the final coat, specified for bathrooms, wet rooms and entrances. It slightly reduces the mirror effect, which is the honest trade for a safer surface. Slip-resistant finishes are available on any image.
Specified where the floor sits under glazing or a skylight, using a polyurethane or polyaspartic topcoat to hold the colour of the print in sunlit areas. It also improves abrasion resistance.
We have been installing resin floors since 2012 and have completed more than 1,200 floors, with offices in all major cities and service all over Pakistan. The name on the door is not decoration: 3D work is where we started, and it is the system that leaves the least room for error. The print goes down once, in a room that has to be clean, in a window measured in minutes — so it goes to the same experienced installation teams every time, not to whoever is free that week.
Every project starts with a free site inspection: we measure, assess the slab, check for rising moisture and tell you what the floor genuinely needs. Then you get a fixed written quotation with the artwork, the clear build, the topcoat and the return-to-service times set out in it — and a proof to sign before a single metre is printed.
Tell us the city, roughly how big the area is and the kind of scene you want underfoot. We will inspect the floor free of charge, tell you honestly whether the slab and the image will work, and come back with a fixed written quotation.