The Shapeways Blog: 3D Printing News & Innovation
Entries from February 2011
Thursday, February 10. 2011
Grey and Purple Strong & Flexible Test Samples
We had a survey to poll the results, and the top three colors were Purple, Orange, and Grey. Even though I know Orange is popular, especially among the Dutch football/soccer fans among our community, it actually didn't sell too well when we offered it. So we decided to go with the other two (Purple and Grey). We ran some tests and here are the results!
(BTW: Many thanks to Boredom.Is.Me for letting us use his designs!)
Grey
Here are the various grey combinations we try. The different shades are due to experimenting with different concentrations of dye and different length of time the objects soaked in the dye. I think they turned out nicely, if I do say so myself.
A better, white balanced picture:
Purple
The "Purple" was interesting as well. The models actually sort of a midnight, Yves Klein Blue (which btw is a lovely color). They do have some purplish hue in them, a Blue-Purple if you will (Blurple?). Check it out:
So... what do you guys think of these colors? Let's hear your thoughts!
Wednesday, February 9. 2011
When the 3D Printed Imagination Takes a Wrong Turn
I wanted to touch on this soon to be more prominent issue for a moment. I totally don't mean to be preachy, but it's one of those things that at least needs to be talked about for a sec. The idea of making money sounds pretty appealing in general, but not at the cost of your personal and professional ethics and reputation.
I consider all Shapies (aka Shapeways members, and customers too) to be a part of the 3D printing revolution that is slowly but surely taking place, and love to see all the crazy cool things people come up with, but the momentum will only keep going as well as it's going if 3D printing is kept in a good light and not tarnished by those not thinking of the community they may effect.
Tuesday, February 8. 2011
Haute-couture (aka super fancy fashion) keeps on emerging in 3D printed form
She may not be able to wear it to the mall, and it may chafe a little, but the fashion world keeps on popping up with new 3D printed designs. Though I'm sure a lot of you don't pay too much attention to the world of high end impractical fashion that struts its stuff down the runway time and again, it's definitely interesting to know the extents of what you could make, not to mention imagine how much people might pay for it.
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Open Attribute : Making Creative Commons Attribution (A Little) Easier
Open Attribute is a simple add-on (currently available for Firefox & Chrome) that makes it easier to attribute the proper Creative Commons license at the click of an icon on your toolbar..
License attribution is relatively simple, but sometimes people get it wrong. We will be talking about this more in the very near future, and will be implementing functionality to give you the option to apply creative commons licenses to any files you make available for download on Shapeways. Until then, take a look at Open Attribute to help you ensure you do not inadvertently step on anyone's digital toes.
"That’s why we’re building Open Attribute, a suite of tools that makes it ridiculously simple for anyone to copy and paste the correct attribution for any CC licensed work. These tools will query the metadata around a CC-licensed object and produce a properly formatted attribution that users can copy and paste wherever they need to.
Open Attribute is at the early stages and it looks like they will be broadening their range off tools, it would be great to see them include the option to add the icon for the license used along with the attribution and location. I did do a quick test and picked up a glitch where the attribution referenced the wrong URL, also it did not pick up the license out of Flickr even though they use it as an example.
Monday, February 7. 2011
Nervous System and GDG Studios at NY International Gift Fair
This past Tuesday I dropped by the New York International Gift Fair to say hi to our friends from Nervous System, Jessica and Jesse, and to get a pulse on what's going on in the gifts and crafts world. Nervous System's beautifully delicate, mathematical work seemed to be gaining plenty of attention, even on a day when the convention center was mostly empty thanks to icy, rainy NY weather. With extra touches, like necklaces hung on orange and white wall pieces faceted to resemble the shape of minerals, the scene was really striking.
I asked what else I should check out and they mentioned that there was one other artist at the Gift Fair who works with 3D printing. Jessica helped me find GDG Studios' booth, a jewelry and home decor shop that specializes in a blend of hand crafted and digitally manufactured products. Joe Gower, GDG's founder (pictured below on the right), showed me their collection including their vibrantly colored, highly unique "digital bracelets." I was very excited to learn that Joe and his team are heavy Shapeways users, and I urged him to keep in touch and give plenty of feedback.
It was great to be able to connect up with old Shapeways friends, and to serendipitously meet community members for the first time. I was also glad, in the big picture, to see personal manufacturing slowly becoming more pervasive. I'm looking forward to checking out NYIGF one year from now, and seeing how the number of artists using digital fabrication changes, and increases!
Friday, February 4. 2011
3D Printed OCTA GEAR
Check out this beautiful gear mechanism by JSP Math Designs. If anyone else has any amazing mechanisms, automata, engineering projects or just 3D printed trickiness, Please post on the 'It Arrived' forum, we would love to see more.
Tuesday, February 1. 2011
3D Tin: world's first 3D modeling tool that runs in a browser.
If that wasn't cool enough it even exports to 3D Print!!!!!
If you are keen to try 3D printing with Shapeways but do not know how to 3D model then 3D Tin may be the solution for you...
Like a fun cross between Lego and 8-Bit graphics with 3D Tin you assemble your model with cubes that are drawn by dragging your mouse on a grid, drawing on top of an existing cube ads another cube in height. Simple. You can also use the Extrude tool to add additional cubes in any direction, and an eraser to, you guessed it, erase and cubes...
This has to be the easiest, lowest resolution 3D modeler that makes Google SketchUp look like rocket science. The perfect fun modeler for kids (or the young at heart)
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