Shapeways 3D Printed Full Color Sandstone just got a whole lot brighter thanks to a change in our post processing. Full color 3D prints will now have whiter whites, brighter colors, greater contrast and definition.
You have seen the beautiful results from community members Magic and Stony’s experience with better color quality and resolution! Now this same quality is available for all. All orders in Shapeways Full Color Sandstone will now be finished with the new process so you and your customers will have the best quality 3D prints possible.
As you had seen with Magic and Stony’s 3D prints, the new process involves a coating with cyanoacrylate (aka superglue) with no wax finish. This reduces the yellowing of the white and allows for truer colors and crisper contrast as you can see in the samples below with the previous process on the left and the new process on the right. There is some possibility that this will make the full color prints slightly more brittle, but the Shapeways keychain that has been bouncing around in my bag for the past month has endured with no breakages or discoloration.
So now we have turned up the awesome on our full color 3D printing, what are you going to start designing? Are we going to see more full color figurines, wild train components (Jettuh?), or perhaps you will try the latest cool project by archipelis?
And one more thing…
Interested in movable parts? Check out the design guidelines. With this new process we have a few changes to design guidelines, read the guidelines carefully to ensure awesome designs.
I’d like to build this in HO scale:
http://dti.railfan.net/Pototype_Images/Structures/DTItowerNWcornerDiannMIjul85.jpg
Sandstone walls and roof with FD windows and doors should work. It won’t be cheap but it’ll be easier than building it from scratch. Has anybody printed a tile roof in Sandstone?
You could build that in half a day. Pre-printed paper pattern, over pre-textured plastic.(available online) Cut them both at the same time. 6 pieces for the basic shape. the rest is print and paste. Photograph all the windows and doors. Print them to scale. Glue on. Easy peasy.
You’re right, but doing that eliminates any need for Shapeways;-)
Ultimately I want to produce a model that can be easily duplicated and require as little assembly as possible. I’d prefer clicking ‘Add To Cart’ and spending my time designing new models to scratchbuilding.
My Prints are so Bright, I gotta wear Shades !!!
http://youtu.be/8qrriKcwvlY
Great news 🙂 thanks guys
Great colors!
Is it possible to get a video comparing strengths of parts printed via the old process vs the new one?
Bart posted one a while back of him snapping a printed medallion in half.
Now I’d like (and need) to know if I still can get the same dremel-smoothable result that I could get with the wax finished full color prints 😐
( see http://twitpic.com/4mvbuy )
The cyanoacrylate on i.materialise’s full color samples made the roughness even more obvious, and those were not smoothable afterwards :/
Nancy.. the square color test block that you used for the new FCS.. (second image above..)
Can you make that model available for download?
It would be a massive help to have the numeric color values available so that we can attempt more accurate color matching.
I have to ask a question in regards to color printing using Blender. The newest version I use; Blender 2.5 doesn’t have the export format .vrml. Is there another format I can use?
Personally I still just export from 2.49, as long as your model is “finished” in 2.5 you can open in 2.49 and export from there fine.