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: 

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.

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!

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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