Paper Fashion.

Via SwissMiss: the web stencil and Safari notepad for when you absolutely positively have to publish offline. 

My girlfriend just came back from Dubai and below are some pictures that give you an idea about the "awesomeness" of the place. Besides some internet start-ups in the late nineties they seem to be the only people really going for broke with the "build it and they will come" thing. 

This is the Burj Dubai which is going to be the tallest building in the world, it is currently over 700 metres tall, and it looks ridiculous.  

This is the outside of the Burj al Arab the six star hotel that seems to also go for the whole ridiculous thing.

There you can order a $7000 cocktail. The interesting thing about it is not that it is the worlds' most expensive, because anyone can come up with something with increasingly expensive ingredients(where will it all end: super model ice cubes? or A Bugatti Veyron with Gin and Tonic in it?)but that eight people have blown $7000 on the cocktail, so in Dubai there seems to be a market for them. Check out the ingredients to the right: 

On the 27th of this month(this Saturday) the Shapeways website will be down from 7:00-8:00 AM CET. This link will tell you when the downtime starts in your city.

We're sorry for the inconvenience, but we are doing a major performance upgrade at that time. We're doing this to prepare for the Shops and in order to process your models quicker. 

Photo Credit: Guspim

I came across Laura Bezant's work via Coroflot. I think that this type of jewelery would lend itself well to 3D printing. You can check out her other work on her site here. Here and here you can find some more photographs of her work.  I think that her designs manage to make the materials look luxurious and in so doing could elevate our 3D printed materials also.

We've been working on updating the site and I thought I might point out some updates. Your can now upload files to us in the VRML format(entension .WRL). This oldie but a goodie file format should make it even easier to upload to Shapeways. Furthermore you can now upload models consisting of up to 500,000 polygons to Shapeways. This should be good news to all you Zbrush guys out there. We also now support multiple shipping adresses, so you can now send others the gift of Shapeways. We also improved our search functionality a bit and cleared up some little issues here and there. If you have any suggestions, things you don't like about the site or things you find confusing then please email: joris (at) shapeways (dot) com and we'll fix it. 

P.s., Almost forgot: all models that you can order now have a pink shopping cart logo on them. You can see the logo in the bottom right hand corner in the gallery or in a person's gallery. 

 

Shapeways will be holding a metal 3D printing contest from today until the 15th of January. The winning entry will win his(or her) own model printed out in Titanium.

To start off: Wow! Can we really 3D print metal just like we do with White Strong and Flexible now? Well, yes and no. 3D printing in metal (or direct metal printing) is not as accessible a technology as the regular 3D printing technologies that we use at Shapeways at the moment. The material that is used is also more expensive, because it is a Titanium alloy. The machines and the process itself are much more expensive also. Just how expensive? To give you an indication: we estimate that the contest winners prize(which can be 10 cubic centimeters)will cost us around $1000 to $2000 depending on its size! To top it all off there are design rules that you will have to follow when designing for 3D metal printing. Check out the half scale Light Poem in Titanium to the right. 

We are not offering metal as a material right now; however this is a unique opportunity: your unique object 3D printed in titanium. As far as we know you will be amongst the first people ever to be able to have your own personal design made and then 3D printed in titanium. There are some companies out there using the technology, but even their usage is rather limited and direct access to these machines? Unheard of!

If you're interested in entering in the contest or want to know more about Direct Metal Laser Sintering(aka Metal Laser Sintering or Metal 3D printing) you can go to our special contest page here.

As you've probably heard by now this contest will not be a walk in the park. It is by far our most challenging contest so far but then again it is not every day you get to win something that no one has ever won before. Good luck!

Pete Zich pointed us to a great way to export to Shapeways from Maya. He took some screenshots and explains how to do it. Pete reports that, "I've uploaded over 20 items and all of them have been done this way, with excellent results." Thank you Pete! We will turn your info into a tutorial soon.

"The only steps involved are selecting the meshes you want to export, choosing "Export Selected" and selecting DAE_FBX."             

We got a huge response from you guys for the Silver coloured Ring Poems. Because of this we will extend our offer to color your Ring Poems silver for free. You can now order our silver coloured Ring Poems up and until the 15th of December. It would be great if you guys could tell us afterwards what your guests, family and friends thought about your unique napkins rings. Send us an email with their responses! joris (at) shapeways (dot) com

Maddox, who is doing a lot of interesting work on Shapeways such as these hinges, these rings that I love and this Iris. You can also check out his techy and interesting blog here. Now he has posted a video on his site that shows you how you can export from Alibre Express to Shapeways. Alibre is a free solid modeling tool and he shows you clearly how you can export to Shapeways using the STL file format. Check out the video here.

Professor George Hart is a rapid prototyping pioneer. Back when Shapeways was years away from being an idea and the technology was in its infancy and only used by Universities and big corporates for R&D he was already making art on 3D printers. In addition to being a sculptor he is a Mathematician, a Computer Science Professor at Stony Brook University and has published academically on topics ranging from education, puzzles, cryptography, linear algebra to engineering. Be sure to stop by his site. But, as you might be able to determine from the picture of his office, his truest love is geometry.

So tell us a bit about yourself?
I try to make cool things.

Are you a mathematician or a sculptor?
That isn't an either/or question as I consider myself both. Perhaps "applied mathematician" is an understandable category, applying mathematics to sculpture.

How do you approach your rapid prototyping art?
My mind is full of forms screaming to get out. Unfortunately, there is no time for me to get to them all. I try to give the most worthy ones the gift of existence, but there are so many material things one must attend to. Additive fabrication helps me considerably in the process. I hope viewers can see some of what I see in my works.

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We have a special deal for you. If you order a Ring Poem before the 9th of December we will paint it silver for you, for free. Simply select 'silver' in the Creator when making your own Ring Poem. Ring Poems cost between $8-10 depending on the font and amount of text you use in making your own personal message. We're curious to see how many people like us painting and coloring their models and this is a bit of a test to see if you guys would like this and of course to see how many people would like some original silver napkin rings for Christmas.   

And after a flurry of emails between all the shapies and quite some discussion the winner of the Christmas contest is Baroba with his delightful model Christmas Stress.Even though it was an expensive model at $225 Baroba managed to set an endearing and original Christmas scene with his model and won over most of the shapies.

In second place was jdavidbush with his model Tealight Nativity. We liked the fact that his model made a lovely shadow on the wall and that it was affordable at $35. 

In third place Whystler with Santa's Helper Small, this model was very versatile and at $3 incredibly cheap. You could use it as a decoration in a tree or as a free standing smile-bringer to any Christmas scene.

We would like to congratulate Baroba on his win, his $250 in 3D printing coupons and his: 20 folding gift boxes, ultimate collectors edition of A Christmas Carol and his Blizard bucket of snow in seconds.