I have been trawling through the Shapeways site checking out some of the amazing designs you are all 3D printing with Shapeways and I am a little overwhelmed as there is currently over 1600 Shapeways Shops full of an incredibly broad range of items.  It is no longer possible for me to keep track of all the new shops that are opening let alone the thousands of models that are uploaded each week. 

To help me keep on top I would like you to let me know your favorite Shapeways Shop? I will feature the favorite on the blog and randomly pick a winner from the people who suggest shops who I will personally give a $25 3D printing voucher!!!

I will keep this running til the end of the week and let the winners know over the weekend..

So, For $25 worth of 3D printing, Which is Your Favorite Shapeways Shop?

The STL has been the quasi-default file format for 3D printing/rapid prototyping since the mid 80's when it was developed by 3D Systems but a lot has changed in 3D printing since then with increased quality and complexity yet STL has remained the same.

Now we have a new contender called AMF (Additive Manufacturing File Format) that is better suited to today's and hopefully tomorrow's) 3D printers. Developed by the American Society for Testing and Materials under the leadership of Professor Hod Lipson of Cornell University AMF addresses what STL lacks with a more advanced file structure including object, material, texture, constellation and metadata with a specifiable unit system, curved triangles, Metadata and all of this in half the size of a comparable STL file..... 

UPDATE: You can download the STL converter and some sample files to take a look.

 

By Museum of Small Things show a great example of using 3D printing to add value to 3D printed products through professional presentation, both in the packaging and photography. Great work...

You may know of 3DTin, the very cool, easy and intuitive browser based 3D modeler that started out as a very 8-bit cube assembler that is getting increasingly more sophisticated while maintaining the intuitive user interface.  You may not know of Cadmium, a library of Python scripts for 3D modeling curated by the man behind 3DTin, Jayesh Salvi.

Jayesh was kind enough to answer a few questions about his projects, the philosophy behind them and what he hopes to achieve with them.

Jayesh your projects include 3Dtin and now cadmium, a python library for solid modelling, tell us a little about your background and what has brought you to create these projects.

I am a software engineer currently based in Mumbai, India. I started work on 3DTin in March 2010. I always had a fascination for 3D modeling tools. I had tried to learn Blender for a long time. But even after using it on and off for a year I couldn't use it meaningfully. It was clear to me that there is a lot of scope for improving usability of 3D modeling tools. But I have no prior background in Computer graphics - neither as a programmer nor as a user, therefore I didn't consider it an option to develop a 3D modeling software on my own. However in late 2009, as WebGL started gaining ground, I saw a new platform that could be game changing for CAD tools. WebGL can do to CAD tools, what AJAX did to productivity tools (document/spreadsheet editors) a decade ago. Moreover the emerging interest in 3D printing clearly shows demand for easy to use CAD tools.

This gave me a very challenging project to work on, something I was looking for since I started working on my own in early 2009. In a previous life, I worked at companies like VMware and Symantec for 4 years in the US, and studied Computer engineering at Univ of Minnesota earning Masters. In Feb 2009, I relocated back to India to work on something of my own. At first, I developed couple of Android apps with moderate success, but I was clearly looking for something big to solve. Fortunately, the idea of 3DTin started taking shape and it provided a big enough challenge that I needed.

$500 worth of 3D printing is just a photograph away.

To celebrate the holidays and all things summer, Shapeways is giving you the chance to win $500 worth of 3D Printing. To enter simply take a photograph of Bowie the Bunny out in the wild and upload it to Flickr with the tag 'Shapeways Photo Contest'. We want to see Bowie the Bunny EVERYWHERE!!! If you go to Paris, take Bowie, if you go to Rome, take Bowie, if you go to Niagara Falls, take Bowie.

To make the contest even easier to enter we will be including a 3D print of Bowie the Bunny for free in as many orders as we can over the coming weeks but we cannot guarantee every order will get one, depending on how many of the bunnies multiply during the breeding period until August 19th when entries close.   If you want to ensure you have a chance to win $500 worth of 3D printing you can always order a Bowie the Bunny designed by Baroba for yourself for as little as $4.90 _{(that's less than 1% of the prize)}.

An incredibly ambitious project by A1 Kitbashing taking 3D Printing Transformers to the next level.... 

Chibi-Devs splits into his six Chibi-Structicons, all of which transform individually from robot to vehicle and back. Chibi-Devs himself is articulated everywhere, with the ubiquitous joints all there, knees, hips, shoulders, neck, elbow.

Check out more 3D printed transforming awesome.

Entoforms is a really interesting project by Dolf Veenvliet aka macouno using Python scripts in Blender to create a series of Future Fossils using 3D printing.

Macouno is using IndieGoGo to crowd source funding to fully realize the creation, and exhibition of a series of limited issue, highly collectible, art pieces. They are artificial life, generated in the computer, 3D printed, grown, and presented in classic specialist entomology style. In august of 2011 the Entoforms will be exhibited in association with a renowned art gallery in Amsterdam.

Wow, we thought the first ever ready to wear, fully 3D printed article of clothing would get some attention, not only because it is a bikini, but also because of the innovative use of materials and software processes, but the response has been huge.

The N12 has been featured on MSNBC, Time, Wired, Gizmodo, cnet, dezeen and hundreds more blogs around the world with much excitement about the prospect of 3D printing clothes to fit.

It is important to note that the garment/fashion industry is one of the few remaining industries where mass produced items are still assembled almost entirely by hand.  This means that although design may happen in the first world, production is often outsourced to the third world where labor is cheap and working conditions can range from questionable to appalling.  The N12 3D Printed bikini may at first impression seem like nice story with little depth, but what it represents is a possible end to the sweatshop with a completely 3D printed garment pulled direct from a machine. This of course may not be about to happen with the material properties currently available to produce 3D printed fabrics but as the materials become more complex, stronger and more flexible with simultaneous decreases in wall thickness we will see 3D printed garments become increasingly viable. 

Sweatshop project / marissaorton / CC BY-SA 2.0

We will follow up soon with more images of the N12 3D printed bikini in use, how it responds to water and address questions about the comfort of the fit and fabric, but for now we would like to go over the fabrication process in a little more detail, to share how Continuum Fashion designed the N12 and what might happen next.

For starters check out the intro video by Continuum Fashion