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Tuesday, April 29. 2008

We Have Monkey Babies!

Comment 1
 
And they're soooo cute...

I had these printed because I wanted to show you a comparison of our three printing options (Cream Robust, White Detail and Transparent Detail). They came out really nice - they're only 6cm tall and the amount of detail is great - you can even see their belly buttons!




You'll find more close-up photos on our Material Options page.


I did learn a few things from this:

  • The transparent detail material will really stand out when you make it wet - applying an acrylic lacquer finish should make it permanently shiny.
  • I didn't take proper care of balancing my objects - they keel over backwards.. It's a bit tricky to get this right, but I'm working on a method involving Blender's real-time physics engine. More about that in another post!
  • If you want to print small objects, use the 'Detail' materials. The Robust will create stronger objects, but at the cost of a somewhat lower resolution.


That's it for today - I now have to take care of my monkey babies!

Posted by Bart in Inspiration, What's Hot at 09:04

Friday, April 25. 2008

Easy Design for 3D Printing with TopMod3D

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TopMod3d is a free, open source, topological mesh modeling system that allows users to create high genus 2-manifold (watertight) meshes. It runs on Windows and OSX.

To me, topological modeling feels weird, but after playing around with it for a little I managed to get some nice results. As an added bonus most models will be readily printable by Shapeways (after conversion to X3D/Collada, still).

Links
Here are some videos that are interesting to watch:

'Twisted Cube Handles'

(This interface version is outdated, but the way of working is still the same)


'Tetrahedron Spikes'



'Generated models'
Some nice models made in TopMod3D

Posted by Bart in Inspiration, What's Hot at 13:22

Friday, April 18. 2008

Video: From Screen to Reality

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Over the last few weeks I found that everyone (including me!) is curious about our printing process. How fast is it? What do the machines look like? How many models can it print at once? Are the models ready to use after printing?

To answer all this, I went to the printing facility with a videocamera and created a short report. It covers everything from preparing the design up to the point where I'm solving my little puzzle like a madman ;-)

This video only covers our Stratasys FDM 400mc; last week we added the Objet Eden 500V which works differently (we can now offer new printing options, by the way). I'll try to capture the Objet next time.

We've also revamped our video site, so happy watching!

Posted by Bart in What's Hot at 07:42

Tuesday, April 1. 2008

Now with twice the amount of materials!

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Okay, I know, while technically true, perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit. But I'm simply very happy to announce that after a small delay we can offer you now a choice: between 2 very relevant but also very different materials.


On top of the White, very strong material we've offered so far, we've now made available a Transparent material with a very high resolution (meaning it will look very nice & smooth). Obviously, there are other differences too: for example the transparent material is less suitable to resist temperatures ahead of 50 degrees Centigrade. This temperature perhaps sounds far fetched but e.g. a car standing in the sun could reach this temperature.


Anyway, this announcement suddenly offers you a choice between function and form. While the costs are similar. We'll continue expanding as we go, if you have any specific requests just don't hesitate to tell me in the comments.


Cheers,

Jochem

Marketing Shapeways

Posted by in Shapeways, What's Hot at 06:02
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