Possibly one of the most touching stories of using 3D printing to create a unique, personal gift and we are not just talking a photo printed on a cup...

Shapeways community member Phelicia Ramlogan created a gift straight from a child's imagination and 3D printed it in full color.  Kira wanted a submarine duck, mocked it up in ZBrush and Photoshop (yes she is 4 years old), her father cleaned up the 3D model a little then had it 3D printed by Shapeways.

You must read the story below from the parents perspective..... 

CUTE!!!!

When a 4 year old understands that they can 3D model to design and 3D print exactly what they want, nothing is going to hold them back....

We all know nightclub lighting can play tricks on the eye, harsh fluorescent lighting may reveal a different face, but did you ever think you could mistake Albert Einstein for Marilyn Monroe?

Drzach & Suchy, (previously mentioned on the Shapeways blog) have been working on a series of 3D printed shadow casting panels that allows multiple images to be encoded within a single physical object, a white panel, which displays the separate images under specific lighting conditions.

"The underlying principle of our technique is based on a simple observation: the shadow cast by an object depends not only on the object itself, but also on the light; therefore the same object under changing lighting conditions can totally change its appearance."

With Conversation, the technique is used to make an image of Albert Einstein transform into an image of Marilyn Monroe. See the video below for a vaguely unsatisfying demonstration.

Three Cubes Colliding is a beautiful project by Ivan morison and Heather Peak, in collaboration with Sash Reading and Queen and Crawford using 1700 3D-printed connectors linking carbon fiber rods that support cubenfiber aerospace fabric sheets.

Three Cubes Colliding from Jimandtonic on Vimeo.

Found via 3Ders.org

Growthobjects have shared the unpacking of their africa #ceramic and lillyseed #02 3D prints from Shapeways. Beautiful.

Shapeways community member and mathematician Henry Segerman was recently interviewed on BBC Radio show Outriders about mathematical shapes and their transference to the physical world as sculpture via 3D printing.  Listen to the interview, check out Henry's site and ponder visualizations of a multi dimension universe. You may remember Henry's Hilbert Curve 3D print (pictured below), and Knotted Kog. Henry is a research fellow at the University of Melbourne doing research in 3-dimensional geometry and topology, particularly involving ideal triangulations.

It is the day of 3D printed skulls at Shapeways

What better gift for the Minecraft addict than a full color 3D Print of their avatar.

Minetoys is an online service that uses Shapeways 3D printing to create a full color 3D model of a Minecraft avatar.

How does it work?  Your Minecraft skin is rendered in HD file (yeah, HD pixels !) and applied to a 3D model, verified by a human being, and then sent to Shapeways for 3D Printing. You can also choose from over 600 Minecraft avatars from the Minetoys Shapeways Shop including Le Boblennon officiel !, xXNuageZombieXx, Manamaxxx and many, many more.