Dear community members, I will be leaving Shapeways as per tomorrow. I'll continue to do some Shapeways blog posts but will no longer be your Community Manager. I'm leaving Shapeways in order to pursue other opportunities.

The past two years have been the most invigorating & exciting of my life. To be able to let Shapeways grow from a group of beta testers to a large and vibrant community with tens of thousands of members, tens of thousands of designs and more than 8000 models ordered a month was an incredible experience.

Those first few months were rather chaotic. It started with a bang with articles on TechCrunch and Boing Boing. We were inundated by email, questions & problems (and in one fell swoop thousands of members). Materials had to be introduced Black Detail, White, Strong & Flexible; Transparent Detail, Full Color, Stainless Steel, Glass, High Gloss Glass and above all else we were impatient.

Impatient to show you what you could do using 3D printing technology. We were getting to grips with letting you "upload and print" but already working on the Creators, the Co-Creator platform and all the other features you've seen. The learning curve was steep, not only for our growing community but also for us. Nonmanifold, open edges and coming to grips with software packages we'd never even heard of meant we were learning all the time. Bugs were popping up everywhere, as if we were gallivanting around the jungle tossing sugar cubes every which way. At the same time we had to organize and visit events such as SIGGRAPH, Dutch Design Week and Makerfaire. As a net result I've explained 3D printing to more people than I'd ever think I'd meet in a life time. Somewhere along the line I managed to write 347 blog posts: some of dubious quality, many in dire need of editing but hopefully some good ones in there somewhere.

I also got to dive into model trains, 3D puzzles, space ships, design schools, jewelry designers, Fablabs and many other communities we engaged. So not only has Shapeways let me meet a large number of people and these people have been very diverse. I've also gotten to learn about 3D printing and: graduation ceremony deadlines, N & H0, sculptural intent, live action role playing, remote control helicopters, replica steam boats, racing teams, 3d scans of clavicles, jet engines, fashion accessories, dinner wear, knives & forks, Snoopy, the Virgin de Guadalupe, LEGO swords, fractals, elves, chocolate molds, brass knuckles, Facebook games, UAVs, action figures, Second Life, insects, proteins, DNA, photography, stamps, RFID tags, augmented reality, watches, chess sets, manga, robot arms, fighting robots, board games, desktop wargaming and many other things. Opening up your eyes every day to new communities, new designs and new challenges was wonderful. Thank you all for letting me learn about your community!

We've spent the time since trying to encourage and marshal the incredible skill and energy level of the Shapeways community by holding contests and reaching out through You Tube, this blog and our lively forum. Whereas initially we were focused on just letting people upload to Shapeways, later on it became a question of inspiring people in creating more and more diverse things. The quality of work in the gallery and on It arrived (Ralph's idea!) has continually improved remarkably as people have mastered designing for 3D printing. The sheer variety of the designs on Shapeways right now is mind blowing. While I'd like to think I played a small part in this I know that it is really the community that made this happen.

Fairly quickly the first heroes started to emerge in our community. Whether by tirelessly submitting bug reports or suggestions, spending hours helping on the forum, writing tutorials or by spreading the word it was these community heroes that really have made Shapeways what it is today. Shapeways is a very high engagement community and it is these people's pioneering work that has made this possible. We've had members spend 10-12 hours fixing someone else's complex design and others have spent over a 1000 hours on Shapeways. We've seen hundreds of blog post and tweets by community members spreading the word.

These heroes were brought to us by sites linking to us and writing to us (over ten thousand!). I'd like to especially thank Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing, the Wired Blogs, the guys at Makezine, Gizmodo and Engaget for bringing us talented creative people that have helped shape Shapeways. I'm intensely proud of Shapeways and the Shapeways community. Not only am I proud of what we've all achieved together so far but I know I will be proud of what you'll achieve after I've left. I would like to thank each and every community member from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for your friendship, ideas & encouragement. I am indebted to you for inspiring me with your creativity and hard work for this community.

Should you wish to keep in touch with me you can follow me on twitter here or email me at joris (dot) peels (at) gmail. (dot) com. 

A few weeks ago Steve of Third Fate Creations approached us about showing off his painting skills on some of the space ships on Shapeways. Steve works with mini designers in a very selective way. He chooses designs that inspire him and then paints them. Mostly this is for a fee and sometimes when Steve is really inspired it is in return for credit and keeping the painted mini. You can check out the pricing and also a lot of airbrush and painting tips on his site.

We gave Steve a few models so he could show off his skill for you guys and hopefully get you all to start thinking of the possibilities of combining airbrushing with your 3D prints. For Shapeways Steve painted two of  Charles Oines intricate and wonderful spaceships: the Ryuushi Warleader and the Martian Icaria Class Strike Cruiser.

Steve, "used an airbrush on all but the "gem/glass reflection spots" and on those used a 00 brush.
The paint is a combination of GW, Createx, and Autoair, depending on what effect I needed.
It took, roughly, 4-6 hrs total time to prep and paint each one."

If you look at Charles' Shop you can see that the models are tiny.The Dominator for example of 0.9 by 3.6 by 3.9 cm. The intricate painting detail that Steve managed to with at this scale is just crazy. 

From today until the 22nd of next month there is a significant discount selected models on the site. Sean's Oloid is not $95 but $66. Basically models with a density higher than 10% that are larger than 20cm3 get 50% discount on the cm3 that exceed the first 20cm3. The discount is over the material price not the mark up of the designer so there will be differences between models. Why & how are we doing this? Have we gone nuts?

We strive to make Shapeways as accessible as we can. We want to make it easier and more affordable all the time. Eventually it is our goal to let you make anything. The more you order the more we scale and the cheaper we can make it for you to order, this encourages you to order more etc.. This is a virtuous cycle that benefits us both. Up and until now our pricing model has been encouraging you to make thin tiny wispy things.  Larger things and more dense things are comparatively cheaper for us to make however. There is simply less cleaning & handling involved per unit of size (and also per $1 in revenue).

Because of this we are able to, for a month and as a test, offer a discount on models that fit the following criteria:

• only valid for the materials White, Strong & Flexible; Black Strong & Flexible; Summer Blue; Summer Green & Summer Magenta
• only valid for products ordered from today until the 23rd of July.
• They have to have a density that is higher than 10%.
• On a White, Strong & Flexible model you will then pay the regular $1.50 per cubic cm for any model that is less than 20 cubic cm as well as a start up fee of $1.50 per model.So no change there.
• On  White, Strong & Flexible model larger than this you will pay a start up fee of $1.50. You will also pay $1.50 per cubic cm for the first 20 cubic cms. Any additional cubic centimeters are only $0.75 per cubic cm. 
• On a Black, Strong & Flexible model there is a $4 start-up cost + 1.78/cm3 for the first 20 cm3 + 0.89/cm3 for any consecutive cm3 over 20cm3
• On the summer colors there is a  $4 start-up cost + 1.99/cm3 for the first 20 cm3 + 0.99/cm3 for any consecutive cm3 over 20cm3    

You can check density in your 3D modeling application (or totally old school divide the bounding box by volume of your model).

The discount has been implemented on the site but it might take the site two hours to work through all the galleries.

The discount is over the material price not over the mark up made by the designer so there will be differences in the discount between designers.

This means that large White, Strong & Flexible models have become a lot cheaper on the site for this one month. We hope you guys have fun with this!

We can now offer you two new glass materials: High Gloss Black Glass and High Gloss White Glass. Open the floodgates of your creativity. What images does their super shiny sheen conjure up in your mind? What will you guys make with these materials?

Gijs' egg cup big hearts is $40

The Angel pendants as seen above are $23

The candle holder below is $89

The materials have a start up cost of $5 and will cost $6.99 per cubic cm. Initially the start up costs for Glass were $15 so this represents a significant price drop in the start up costs. The start up costs of the Milky White Glass has also been reduced by $10 and this material will cost $5.99 per cubic cm. Even though the design rules are the same, the gloss materials are nicer to the touch and stronger.

Process

The materials are made by 3D printing recycled glass. The fine powder is built up layer by layer and a binding material is applied to the glass powder that will become your product. When the 3D print is complete it is baked in an oven to fuse the glass powder. Your products are then subsequently enameled to get their glossy finish. 

Expectation Management

As you can clearly see in the Angel picture there is a fair amount of "definition" from the 3D printing process in the form of bumps and the like. The enamel smooths the 3D prints out considerably and these prints are closed so not porous as the Milky White Glass material is. The models are however far from completely smooth. A lot of the objects made with this process look really good and very arty. But, significant warping may occur and the overall dimensional accuracy of this process is still limited. 3D printing glass is amazing but also very new and a very experimental process. 

Shapeways community member David Bhella 3D printed a 5 CM model of the Herpes Simplex Virus. The Herpes was as a gift for a retiring professor. Presumably, said professor is one of only a small group of people that are glad to have been given herpes. Intrigued I asked David to tell us more about what he does at the MRC Virology Unit, Institute of Virology, University of Glasgow with 3D printing. 

Joris Peels: Why are you interested in 3D printing?

David Bhella: I am interested in all aspects of 3D technology (rapid prototyping, 3D displays and commercial 3D animation software), as my work is entirely focused on solving the structures of viruses in three-dimensions and I find visualisation in 2D media deeply unsatisfactory.

I think that rapid prototyping is a really interesting way of allowing one to appreciate the complexity and symmetry of viruses. Holding the model in your hand is such a 'human' way of understanding an object. Unfortunately the potential for understanding these structures at high-resolution cannot be realised in this manner, because proteins are extremely complex molecules, and a virus is a complex assembly of proteins.  So, the Herpes model I have printed through Shapeways is comparatively low-resolution (about 2.5 nanometers resolution - the object itself is 125 nanometers in diameter). We are now working at better than one nanometer resolution. At this level the 3D shape of individual protein molecules becomes visible, showing us how they fold up. To show this as a polygon surface becomes less meaningful then, and we have to start looking at more complex means of visualisation, also the poly count becomes so high that commercial 3D software cannot handle it.

For the moment then, the strength of 3D printing is in teaching and in public engagement (and in bespoke gifts for retiring professors). I am really enthusiastic about the prospect of producing large metal sculptures of virus particles that people can handle and walk around, I think that the beauty and symmetry of viruses really highlights the elegance of nature and evolutionary processes.  As I am the scientist responsible for public engagement in my department, I am lucky enough to be able to dedicate some of my time to this area. Furthermore, my wife is head of the science team in our local science museum (Glasgow Science Centre), so I have access to a great venue for P.E activities, which is staffed by motivated and enthusiastic science communicators who can help me.  A couple of years ago we created an art exhibition called molecular machines (http://www.molecularmachines.org.uk/), which got a lot of media attention. I think it would be great to produce a molecular machines 2.0 that exploited the latest in 3D panel displays and 3D printing.

Joris Peels: What do you do?

David Bhella: I work on many aspects of the virus life-cycle using cutting-edge electron microscopy and image processing techniques to understand the structures of viruses in three-dimensions. Viruses are the smallest of pathogens to infect man and range from ~30 - 500 nm in size (A nanometer is 1/1000th of a micrometer which is 1/1000th of a millimeter). They reproduce themselves by invading our cells and hijacking the cellular machinery to make thousands more viruses particles. As they have a very small number of genes, they assemble from multiple copies of only a few types of protein. They are therefore highly symmetrical, employing either helical or icosahedral symmetry to make a shell (called a capsid) that ferries their genome between cells while protecting it from damage.

So, we take 2D images in the transmission electron microscope and use image processing methods to average together images of thousands of particles into a 3D reconstruction. I attach a raw image from the microscope of a Feline calicivirus. I am interested in this virus as it is from the same family of viruses as the noroviruses that cause winter vomiting disease.

Joris Peels: Was it just fun?

David Bhella: It is always fun!